Talk of the Toony: The Autobiography of Gregor Townsend

For a split second, I thought it was some big joke and I started to smile – hoping this would result in us both having a laugh and boarding the bus as best friends. Unfortunately, he just scowled, putting his body between the doorway to the bus and myself. As other players were waiting to get on board – and realizing that it wasn’t worth pushing my luck any further – I trooped off back to my hotel room exasperated and angry. Just why Paterson was upset with me was a combination of my forgetfulness and an over-zealous interpretation of what was still an amateur sport.

Many of the squad were given money or merchandise to wear a certain type of rugby boot, which was perfectly within our rights as amateur players. Earlier that season, I had been contacted by Reebok to become one of their sponsored players, and I have been associated with them ever since. However, we were also supplied with Nike boots and training shoes from the SRU. I think Nike supplied the SRU with kit for their age-group sides and part of the deal was that anyone playing for Scotland had to wear Nike boots. If you look at photos of our win in Paris you’ll see a few of the side playing in blacked-out boots. Those of us who chose not to wear Nike had to make sure that no branding was showing. That was after having to convince the management that we had a medical reason for not wearing the Nike boots we had been given. My excuse – which was actually true – was that I’d got blisters from training with the Nike boots. Reebok didn’t give me any money for wearing their boots in an international – the £2,000 yearly payment was a flat fee irrespective of how many games and what boots I wore for Scotland.

Reebok would send me a number of items of footwear and other gear, which was mainly stored at my folk’s house in Gala together with the kit I’d received from the SRU. In packing my bags for the French match, I must have put in a pair of Reebok trainers instead of my Nikes by mistake. I realized this when opening my kit bag in Paris, but thought nothing more of it. Our final team run wasn’t going to be filmed and the odd newspaper photographer who turned up wouldn’t be interested in what trainers I was wearing. And I’m sure a global company such as Nike wouldn’t have been bothered even if I had had Reebok tattooed to my forehead during our run-through. But it was insignificant details like this that the SRU liked to catch people out on, even at the detriment of Scotland’s preparations for such an important match. Sometimes the custodians of the game were more demanding in the amateur days than they are now in the professional era.

A couple of minutes later I was back – the last to board the bus – now wearing black brogues, which didn’t really go with my shorts and tracksuit top. If it had been the manager’s desire to make me feel very small, he had achieved his goal. I was deeply embarrassed and could tell the rest of the squad had worked out what had just happened. My embarrassment continued at the training ground close to our hotel as I was forced to wear my black shoes to do a few laps of an athletics track and a stretching routine with the rest of the boys. Luckily, when we ran through some team plays, one of the subs let me borrow their trainers until we had finished the session.

I tried not to dwell on the morning’s team run and thought back to two years before when I’d sat on the bench for the French game. I had thoroughly enjoyed the peculiar build-up to a match in Paris. We were again using the Hotel Trianon as our base, which was by far the best hotel I had ever stayed in. Even more impressive was the fact that the hotel was only a five-minute walk from Versailles Palace, a stunning building of sublime grandeur surrounded by lavish fountains, a huge lake and magnificent gardens. There are few places in the world that can match the grounds of Versailles for a final get-together as a squad on the morning of a game. It turned out to be the beginning of an unforgettable day.

For a Test match, both teams are usually given a police escort to the stadium. This means that the bus isn’t delayed, as other vehicles are obliged to give way. In France, watching the antics of the gendarmes who flank the team bus is something not to be missed. Despite huge traffic jams blocking la peripherique of Paris, we never seemed to slow down as our police motorbike outriders banged on car doors, waved us through red lights and forced other traffic onto the pavement. That day, we must have made it to the Parc des Princes in record time.

The pulsating atmosphere in the stadium was the stuff of legend, and we experienced a taste of what was in store during our warm-up. There were traditional French bands all around the ground – drums were banged, trumpets and trombones blared and the deep rumblings of innumerable tubas seemed to vibrate through the pitch itself and up into our boots. It felt as if we were the headline act about to come out on stage at a rock concert. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on the ball.

We had agreed that moving the ball wide was our only hope of success, but I wasn’t convinced that we would have the courage to start the game playing attacking rugby. However, events in the opening two minutes deprived us of any choice in the matter.

Even though we knew that the French loved to try little kicks ahead for their wingers to chase, we were powerless to stop France’s captain, Philippe Saint-Andre pouncing on Thierry Lacroix’s neat chip ahead. The game was seconds old and already we were a try down – and at a ground where no Scot had ever tasted success. You could say that, at the very least, this focused our minds! Gavin, who had been caught out of position for the try, rallied his team. And his performance from then on was flawless as he almost metamorphosed into the Scottish rugby equivalent of ‘Roy of the Rovers’.

Somehow, the early blow freed us of our inhibitions. We began to play like we had nothing to lose. I took some flat miss passes from Craig Chalmers and surprised myself that I was able to find space against the brilliant Philippe Sella, offloading the ball to Gavin on a couple of occasions. The second of these led our captain surging up-field into the French half. The move was continued through good linking work by our forwards and when we recycled I was standing out wide screaming for the ball. I could see there was a gaping hole in the French defence.

Ian Jardine’s pass almost didn’t reach me – I had to flick at the ball with my foot and, amazingly, it bounced up into my hands, allowing me to side-step the covering Philippe Benetton to score between the posts. Every aspiring young rugby player has sat at home imagining what it is like to score your first try for your country; very few actually get the chance, but in their dreams the sun is out, the ground is full and it is against one of the best teams in the world. When it happens it is as if time briefly stands still before suddenly going on fast forward. Relief and joy combine in one ecstatic moment. All the hours of toiling on muddy fields on dark evenings, the disappointments of injury – it all seems worthwhile. I tried to run back to my half of the pitch as nonchalantly as possible, pretending that the emotion of the moment hadn’t affected me. Inside I was bursting with pride. The stadium and even my own players were temporarily reduced to a blur of colour.

I couldn’t think of a better arena in which to score a try and I felt ten feet tall as I ran back to be with the rest of the team – that’s nine and a half feet taller than I had felt sliding around with my black brogues at our team run the previous day. With Gavin knocking over a huge penalty kick, by half-time we were in a position to go out and win the game. More importantly, we were all starting to really believe we could win. And, when you start believing you can win games, more often than not, you do win them.

I was enjoying the match and I was particularly focused on the various tasks an outside-centre has to perform. With a very dangerous French backline moving the ball at will, I was trying to track the movements of the full-back Jean-Luc Sadourny, and I was able to tackle him man-and-ball a couple of times. We were competing well and making it very hard for the French to get the upper hand in the set piece. However, we seemed to retreat into our shells whenever we nudged ahead on the scoreboard. It made for a decidedly close match.

The last ten minutes had more twists than a liquorice factory and must have been agonizing to watch for our supporters. Revelling amidst the colour, the noise and the sheer whirlwind intensity of the Parc des Princes, I was directly involved in the final two tries of the contest … Unfortunately the first of these tries went to France.

Having been responsible for Saint-Andre scoring an interception try at Murrayfield the previous season, I felt a depressing sense of déjà vu as he again crossed the line to touch down for what looked like being the clinching score.

With the game tied at 16–16 we had won phase possession in our half and, as Craig Chalmers was out of the 22 m, the call was ‘miss-one diagonal’. What this entailed was that Craig would send a wide pass to me at outside-centre, missing inside-centre Ian Jardine, and it was then my job to dispatch a clearing kick to the opposite touchline and into the French half of the field. However, for the only time in the game I was indecisive and failed to complete a fairly basic task.

Even though I started in the 22 when Craig moved onto Bryan Redpath’s pass from scrum-half, I was unsure whether I was still there or not when I caught his pass and prepared myself to kick. I decided it would no longer be safe to kick to touch as – if I had stepped out of the 22-m zone – France would be given a lineout deep in our half. Instead, I thought the best thing to do was to kick as far as possible into French territory. Frustratingly, I didn’t strike the ball as I wanted to. Saint-Andre had also dropped deep and my weak kick gave him the perfect opportunity to counter-attack.

Still, we should have been able to defend better than we ended up doing, as the French were more than fifty metres from our try-line. However, with only Gavin and Craig Joiner outside me when I kicked, the move had the potential to go wrong if I didn’t make touch. Saint-Andre and Sadourny easily exploited our lack of defenders. Gavin hadn’t come up in a line with Craig Joiner, and I compounded the error of not making touch by not following my clearance. In fact, I had barely moved after seeing the French run the ball back at us, frozen in the hope that Saint-Andre might somehow drop my misdirected punt.

Crucially, Thierry Lacroix missed the conversion, which left a glimmer of hope that we could still win the match. There was probably a feeling of inevitability among our supporters – here was yet another gallant defeat in Paris – and no doubt some of our players began to feel the same way too. However, the urgings and belief of our captain didn’t allow us to wallow in any self-pity. Gavin shouted at his troops, looking each of us in the eyes: ‘That’s it. From now on we run everything. We’re going to get back up the other end of the pitch, score between the posts and win this game. Okay?’

Finally, he looked directly at me. ‘Okay, Gregor?’ I nodded my assent. I was desperate not to disappoint my skipper and, with five minutes remaining, I knew there was still enough time for us to score a converted try.

We attacked the French with everything we had, but found it increasingly difficult to get out of our own half. I called for the ball wide and took a pass from Craig Chalmers just over the halfway line. With the French defence looking like they were drifting out to the touchline, I stepped back inside to try and find a gap between Thierry Lacroix and Laurent Cabannes. I was tackled by both of them but I managed to wrestle my right arm free in the hope that I could offload once more to Gavin. He had been a constant presence on my outside shoulder every time I had run at the defence, but on this occasion I heard him calling for the ball on my inside.

Gavin had sized up the situation in advance and was aware that a sliding French defence had left a gap. Although I couldn’t see him charging up on my inside shoulder, I knew I had to gamble and turn my wrist to send out a reverse pass. Only after letting go of the ball did I see Gavin – who looked more than a bit surprised – surge onto my pass.

In the few seconds that it took Gavin to sprint to the French goal-line he became a Scottish living legend. His angle wrong-footed Sadourny and there was no French player left to stop his run to glory. He still had to knock over the conversion, and showed that his confidence was even greater than normal, as he dummied his run-up to try to catch the French offside. My heart missed a beat when he did this, but he made sure of the two extra points to seal a momentous victory. It would be the only Scotland victory at the fabled Parc des Princes, with France moving to the brand-new Stade de France three years later.

In my old bedroom at my parents’ house there is a photograph of the instant the ball left my hand as I flicked the reverse pass that sent Gavin away on his match-winning run to the try-line. The movement became dubbed the ‘Toony flip’ by the media. Whenever I am back in the room I inspect the picture nostalgically: my focus at trying to get my pass away while being dragged to the ground, and Gavin’s look of astonishment as he is about to grasp the ball in both hands.

In the twelve years since that wonderful spring day, the memory of that instant is still strong – the move off my left foot after drifting across the field, the effort to get my elbows high and free from the two tacklers, and finally the almost blind pass as I struggled to look over my shoulder to find where Gavin actually was. One rugby writer commented that it had been the day that I had finally delivered – and I suppose he was right. Paris was my breakthrough match and put an end to feelings of self-doubt that had prevented me from playing to my potential.

It was only once we were back in the changing room that what we had achieved began to sink in – especially for the older players. We had accomplished something special, something that had evaded all the great Scottish players of the Seventies and Eighties. I looked around at the faces of my team-mates and saw unrestrained rejoicing. This elation was illustrated in different ways with groups of players singing ‘Flower of Scotland’, others hugging each other and even tough competitors like our prop, Peter Wright, crying uncontrollably.

The word quickly spread around the team that most of our supporters were still in the stadium so we went outside to join in the celebrations with them. There were over 7,000 Scots at the ground and we threw our socks and shorts into the crowd as we sang our anthem together one more time. Our team that day – a mix of youth and experience – is worth noting: Gavin Hastings, Craig Joiner, Gregor Townsend, Ian Jardine, Kenny Logan, Craig Chalmers, Bryan Redpath, Eric Peters, Iain Morrison, Rob Wainwright, Damien Cronin (Doddie Weir), Stewart Campbell, Peter Wright, Kenny Milne and David Hilton.

Inevitably, the dressing-room festivities carried on right through the weekend. The after-match dinners in France usually involved a lot of drinking as we were always placed together at a long table without the distractions of the management or the opposition. We started by smashing all the plates that were placed in front of us. The temptation was too great – they came out piping hot and only needed a tap from a spoon to crack in two. The champagne was flowing and not even a ticking off from our manager could stop us from having fun.

Gavin soon became the focus of our frivolity as we told the French players to approach him every five minutes with a strong drink. As captain, he was duty bound to knock them back. Worse was to follow for big Gav as, naively, he had allowed Damien Cronin (who was playing for Bourges at the time) to write his speech in French. Gavin didn’t realize that instead of talking about the match, he was describing to the whole French team and the numerous dignitaries present, the sexual acts he was going to perform later that night with his wife Diane.

Of course, the French found this hilarious and gave him a standing ovation. Gavin looked very pleased with himself. It wasn’t until the early hours of the morning that someone eventually told him what he had actually said!

In reply FFR president Bernard Lapasset was magnanimous in defeat. His words were very prescient and I hope his sentiments stand the test of time: ‘Rugby is not for the country that is stronger or richer, it is for the country that shows greater courage, discipline and teamwork over eighty minutes.’

After the dinner I went with some of the squad to search for our partners who were supposed to have been at a function with the other WAGS. I had been seeing Claire for almost a year – we had met at university – but this was her first experience of accompanying me on an away trip with the Scotland team. I thought I’d better leave our dinner early, just in case she wasn’t enjoying herself. I shouldn’t have worried …

The girls had disappeared. The only people left at the ladies dinner were the wives of the SRU committee. After a quick search, we moved outside – in time to see our partners flying past clinging to the backs of the same motorbike outriders that had taken us to the match earlier in the day. Claire and the girls were buzzing with excitement. In the satisfying glow of the day’s magical events, victory in Paris felt like we had won a Grand Slam. And it suddenly began to dawn on us that we were on course to achieve that feat if we continued our good form.

A fortnight later we beat Wales 26–13 at Murrayfield, although I thought our win could have been even more comprehensive if we had moved the ball as we had done in Paris. Nevertheless, we had won our fourth game on the bounce and, more importantly, had a real chance to win the Grand Slam. Our next game, away to England, meant both sides would be going for the Slam – a scenario that had famously occurred back in 1990.

Since their loss five years before at Murrayfield, England had returned to playing a very restrictive game plan. It had brought them success with Grand Slams in 1991 and 1992 as well as being runners-up to Australia in the 1991 World Cup. Yet, they had never fully utilized their awesome attacking potential. For the 1995 Five Nations finale, their backline included the Underwood brothers, Mike Catt at full-back as well as centres Will Carling and Jerry Guscott.

However, stand-off Rob Andrew adopted a kicking strategy, safe in the knowledge that his gargantuan pack of forwards could dominate the game. With a back five of Martin Johnson, Martin Bayfield, Tim Rodber, Ben Clarke and Dean Richards, the English forwards strangled the life out of us and the match as a spectacle. It was ironic that their hooker, Brian Moore, complained afterwards that ‘Scotland’s spoiling tactics had ruined the whole game.’ I suspect that he had been upset by the fact that we hadn’t submitted meekly to the English juggernaut.

Although we managed to stop England from scoring a try, I can’t say we deserved to win as we hadn’t played to our potential. Our work-rate and defence had been exemplary, but we never attacked with the same skill and ambition that we had done in Paris and we missed the direct running of the injured Ian Jardine. However, the 21–12 scoreline flattered England, and we were aware that we hadn’t been too far away from winning a Grand Slam. We had built up some great momentum and we were resolved that our belief wasn’t going to be affected by the defeat. The squad had real belief that if we developed our attacking edge we could perform well in the upcoming World Cup in South Africa.

From a personal point of view, I felt that I had finally shaken off my previous inhibition when playing for Scotland and, although I would have probably preferred playing in the number 10 jersey, I was now comfortable in the Test match environment. I felt I could beat my opposite number when I got my hands on the ball and I was looking forward to the World Cup on the hard grounds in South Africa. Craig Chalmers had played well that season and I noticed at close quarters that he had an undoubted big-game temperament. There were times against England when I was glad it was him and not myself who was kicking to touch. I was learning more and more with each international and I decided I could wait until next season to make a challenge for what I was convinced was my best position of stand-off.

There was just one more club game to negotiate before the World Cup squad left for a training camp in Spain prior to our departure to South Africa. The rearranged fixture – the last club match of the season – was against Hawick, Gala’s traditional rivals. With both teams safely ensconced in mid-table there was nothing but local pride at stake. Little did I know at the time but it was to be my final performance in the maroon jersey. And it was an occasion I was to remember for all the wrong reasons.

After recovering my own chip kick late in the second half, I received a stinging blow to my knee as I attempted to beat the Hawick full-back Greig Oliver. I knew immediately something wasn’t right as my leg was very painful and felt unstable when I tried to get back on my feet. The Gala captain, Ian Corcoran, was telling me that I’d be able to run it off, but I knew I would have no chance of finishing the game.

My mind went back to two years previously and the only other time I’d suffered a similar injury during a match. Although I was forced to miss the first game of the Five Nations, my medial knee ligament tear in the 1993 national trial had only kept me out of action for three weeks. With Scotland’s opening match in the World Cup almost two months away, I convinced myself that it must be a comparable injury and there was no way it would prevent me from going to South Africa.

Looking back now it was obvious that I was in denial. The following day, despite the fact that I struggled to get in and out of the car, Claire and I left for a four-day break in Ireland that we had already planned. In the days before mobile phones I was incommunicado during our tour around the Emerald Isle, and when I got back home there were numerous messages waiting for me. In particular, the Scottish team manager and doctor were anxious to assess how serious my injury really was. My knee had improved since the weekend and I was quite relaxed when I met up with the SRU’s doctors, Jimmy Graham and Donald Macleod.

An arthroscopic scan revealed that I had completely ruptured my posterior cruciate ligament, which equated to a best-case scenario of three months’ rest and rehabilitation. I was dizzy with shock as it meant that I was now ruled out of the World Cup. The whole timing of the news was the thing that fazed me at first. Missing the World Cup felt like a repeat of missing out on my first cap. On top of my wrist and knee problems from the year before, I started to ask myself whether I was jinxed or, even worse, injury prone.

On the way back from the hospital I tried to change my disappointment and anger into goal setting. I decided then that I would return to Australia in three months time when I was due to be available to play again. I also very nearly convinced myself that there were a number of positives to take from my injury. For the first time in four years I would be able to sit my university exams at the same time as everyone else. I was glad to have my student life to fall back on. There followed a lot of sleeping in the university library, getting over late-night studying and regular drowning of sorrows.

Also my daily physiotherapy at the Princess Margaret Rose Hospital in Edinburgh kept my disappointment in perspective. A three-month injury didn’t seem so bad when compared to some of my fellow patients. Many had massive operation scars and had recovery periods of over a year. One man even told me that he had already torn his cruciate ligaments on five separate occasions and he didn’t play sport of any kind.

Rehab work is a frustrating and seemingly endless repetition of strengthening exercises, but the tedium at least made me determined that I must make the most of the rugby talent I had been blessed with. I had spent the best part of the previous two seasons playing with or recovering from injuries and it was conceivable that the rest of my career could be more of the same.

My rugby mates were great at helping me deal with the trauma and frustrations of missing out on the game’s biggest occasion. I met up regularly with Derek Stark, Andy Nicol and Sean Lineen and I remember us all watching Scotland take on France through a drunken haze in the notorious Edinburgh student pub Oddfellows. Our former team-mates put on a tremendous show and were desperately unlucky not to win the match. If they had, they would have met Ireland in the quarter-finals – a match they would have been favourites to win. As it was, Scotland met the All Blacks with Jonah Lomu et al. and they crashed out of the tournament, despite having played well in all of their games.

The 1995 World Cup was a watershed moment in rugby union and all of a sudden it looked as if the game was poised to turn professional. I put it down to wishful thinking and continued to apply to financial institutions in London, hoping I could work there after the summer. It may seem strange, but I was never envious when I looked around at other sports and saw the money involved. Playing international rugby in front of 80,000 crowds was a privilege and I did not feel it was my right to expect money – the sheer experience seemed payment enough.