SRU chief knows what it takes to win in New Zealand

RUGBY chose to launch its first World Cup in New Zealand in 1987 and, as it returns to the sport’s spiritual home 24 years on, Scottish rugby’s chief ambassador is brimming with more excitement than when he pulled on his boots, and faced and overcame the Haka.

There is much pain in the memories, mostly from on the field, and a wealth of good times recalled from off it, but SRU President Ian McLauchlan flies out from Scotland today as eager as he has ever been about the all-embracing sporting culture he is heading for. One used to imagine a Fifa World Cup as returning home if it went to Brazil, but England view themselves as football’s home, and Spain, France, Italy and Germany have laid claim to being the true Mecca of the round-ball world for some time.

Australia may have beaten the All Blacks in their final clash before the oval ball’s World Cup takes centre stage on Friday, but still New Zealand has no parallel in the world for the intensity of its passion for the engrossing sport of rugby.

The majority of the more than four million inhabitants, who have arrived in the North and South Islands or are descended from people who reached these shores from Europe and the South Sea Islands since founded by Abel Tasman in 1642, appear to live and breathe the sport.

Ayrshire boy McLauchlan first flew into this strange environment 40 years ago, still a fairly inexperienced internationalist, despite being 29, when he was picked for the British and Irish Lions tour of 1971. He was better known among the locals than he was by some teammates when they first landed in the Antipodes, but when a series of Kiwi fists ruled out his fellow Scot and friend Sandy Carmichael, the Jordanhill front row grasped the opportunity to play a key role in what remains the only series success by the Lions in New Zealand.

McLauchlan played in all four Tests, winning in Dunedin and Wellington, drawing in Auckland and losing in Christchurch, came home with the new moniker “Mighty Mouse” and would go on to play as central a role in the Lions’ famous unbeaten tour of South Africa in 1974. But New Zealand was the toughest, he says without hesitation.

“What New Zealand is, you have to understand, is a rugby nation in its truest sense,” he says with a clear tone of respect. “When you go to New Zealand everybody knows exactly who you are, where you play, what you do … everything about you and your team.

“On the field they try to kill you and off the field they try to kill you. On it, they love rugby and try to do it through sheer physicality and skill, and off the field they are the kindest people I have ever met, and kill you with kindness.

“When you’re touring the country there is a unique tension and pressure because everything is so intensely focused on rugby, so you can never get away from it. That is something most of our boys will find new when they arrive in Invercargill on Wednesday and it’s something they, and all the other squads flying in, will have to learn to cope with over the next few weeks.

“Some people find it difficult to handle, especially boys that are shy. They will be bombarded with people wanting to speak to them on the street, in shops, the hotel restaurant and lobby; nice people but just the one subject. I never found it difficult, to be honest, but I’m a gabby bastard who talks to anybody. There are times, though, when you have to ask people to go away.

“On the 1971 Lions tour, we were asked not to drink midweek. So for 95 percent of the months we were away, most of the boys didn’t drink midweek. There was one time on the west coast of the South Island I think it was, maybe Buller, where [John] Pullin, Frankie Laidlaw, Sean Lynch and myself went away and went to a pub. We said to the guy who had the pub we didn’t want to talk to anybody, just wanted to sit in the corner, have a couple of beers and relax, and he said ‘fine’.

“Now, people came in and they recognised us, and they went to come over and speak. The barman said: ‘No. The boys are out for a quiet drink and I said nobody can speak to them, but if you want you can send them over a beer’.

“And so we ended up sitting there at 9pm ga-ga from the schooners of beer they kept sending over, and that’s what I mean when I say they’re really good people, and it’s difficult to say no to them. That’s the kind of thing that happens.”

Some of the greatest Scottish players, such as Andy Irvine, Gavin Hastings, David Sole and Gregor Townsend, talk a lot about how close they came to beating New Zealand with Scotland but fell just short. McLauchlan has the unique distinction as a Scot of beating the All Blacks not once but twice, albeit in the red jersey. So, what were the secrets to success in the “Land of the Long White Cloud”?

“In 1971 it was just a very good tour, on and off the field, with good coaches, good players and a great camaraderie, which helps, but the results were the key to everything. Winning the first Test [9-3, McLauchlan scoring the only try] should have been a feat beyond us because although we murdered them in the scrums I don’t think we got even 30 per cent of the ball. They had this huge intensity of rugby and I’ve never done as much tackling in all my life.

“Willie John [McBride] said to us ‘tomorrow they’ll throw the kitchen sink at you’, and halfway through the first half Lynchy turned to me and said ‘em shure eh jest saw a feckin sink’. But that’s the way they played and you have to stand up to it and keep going.

“I toured New Zealand with Scotland in 1975 and with an invitation side, but there is a huge difference touring with the Lions, and I expect the intensity of the World Cup to be a bit like a Lions tour. This, of course, is a bit different to a normal tour. New Zealand has always been the hardest place to tour, no doubt, because all the provincial sides think they will beat you and they try their very best to do so, and in my day we had dozens of them to play as well [22 in 1971], but a World Cup doesn’t have that thank God.

“I remember Phil Bennett once saying to me if Scotland toured Wales and played Neath, Llanelli, Swansea, Cardiff and Wales, the only game we’d win would be Wales, and I’d say ‘why is that?’ and he’d say ‘because you’re not good enough’.

“He said that we could get ourselves up to beat Wales with our best XV, but that we wouldn’t have the same mentality against Cardiff or Swansea, and if you look at the number of touring sides that lost to Welsh clubs but beat Wales, there is something in that.”

There are countless apocryphal odes to the darker side of rugby in New Zealand, of players who staggered from fields with blood pouring from wounds, referees standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the perpetrator, and smiling, the victim shaking his head at the lack of protection while supporters cheered his demise.

“That is where you quickly come back to earth,” says McLauchlan, chuckling. “It is very strange going from Scotland to a country like that, and it catches you off-guard to begin with. The first thought is that ‘hey, I’m a bit of a celebrity here’ and it’s quite nice, but it only lasts until you get on the pitch, and that’s where you have to prove yourself over there.

“Nothing you do or say off the pitch matters. That’s the only place they’re interested in, and if you don’t produce it on the field New Zealanders lose interest and respect very quickly. You will see that pretty clearly over the next few weeks.”

Scotland may face the All Blacks over the course of the next few weeks, but not until they emerge from a pool that has thrown up varying challenges in the shape of Romania, Georgia, Argentina and England. The runner-up in this pool will meet the winners of New Zealand’s pool, with France the only side likely to deny the hosts that pleasure.

McLauchlan, however, will renew his acquaintance with the country before then when he and Scotland coach Andy Robinson head to Christchurch to hand over a cheque for £50,000 raised at a send-off dinner organised by the Hearts and Balls charity, of which McLauchlan is a director.

It says something about the way Scottish rugby is moving that the former prop, banned “sine die” by the SRU for keeping the proceeds of his autobiography during the amateur era and having his spats with leading figures in the early days of professionalism, is widely regarded as a popular ambassador for the game now.

He speaks his mind, is passionate about the sport and was influential in the moves to sweep a new leadership into Murrayfield this year in the form of the chairman Sir Moir Lockhead and new chief executive Mark Dodson.