Talk of the Toony: The Autobiography of Gregor Townsend. Gregor Townsend
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year before. We would later have a very good relationship during his time as Scotland manager leading up to the World Cup in 2003. He was terrific in this role and the only member of the management that contacted me after my retirement from Test rugby, and I greatly appreciated his kind letter. However, back in 1994, when what he had said after the First Test began to sink in, I couldn’t envisage us ever being friends again.
Dougie’s comments about my performance became the story of the First Test. ITV, who had filmed the match, broadcasted Dougie’s comments, which were backed up by the tour manager, Fred McLeod. For the next couple of days I wasn’t really aware of the story that had blown up back in the UK, but I was miserable and started to feel a long way from home. I had been publicly criticized by our management and to make matters worse, there didn’t seem to be any attempts being made to remedy the situation. It didn’t take a genius to work out that I wasn’t going to be selected for the Second Test against Argentina.
My fears were confirmed when the midweek team to play Rosario was announced and I was named at centre – one of only two players to be selected who had played in the First Test. At training it looked obvious that Graham Shiel was being lined up to move from number 12 to stand-off, as he had already been given the goal-kicking duties ahead of Mike Dods.
With my knee and wrist injuries deteriorating, the last thing my body needed was to play another game just four days after a Test match. But on the other hand, lining up against Rosario, I was glad to be back out on a rugby field so quickly after my so-called ‘shocker’ and I was determined to show that the weekend’s events hadn’t affected my self-belief. I wanted to play as if I didn’t have a care in the world. It was frustrating that the coaches had selected me at centre, not allowing me the opportunity to prove what I was capable of in the number 10 jersey. Even though I didn’t get much ball, I managed to put on a decent pretence of being confident and found a couple of gaps. However, we lost 27–16 to Rosario, an Argentine side who had unexpectedly moved the ball wide.
The following day back in Buenos Aires, I bought a Times newspaper, which was now a few days old. Interestingly for me it included a match report from our game against Argentina. The headline said it all: ‘Townsend shocking in narrow Scots defeat’. The majority of the article was concerned with Dougie’s outspoken comments. I realized that it would have been an even bigger story in the Scottish press. Speaking to my mum and dad on the phone I tried to sound as upbeat as possible. They told me there had been debate in the media about Dougie’s criticism of me and that most commentators seemed to think it had been unmerited. There had even been letters of support for me printed in The Scotsman newspaper.
I am sure Dougie had made a heat-of-the-moment remark and later regretted what he said. This was maybe why he came to speak to me so soon after the press conference, but even though the manager Freddie McLeod sent me a courteous letter after the tour, Dougie never backtracked on his comments about my performance. I’m certain, however, that he hadn’t intended to create a story that was to dominate our build-up to the crucial Second Test. Dougie had been through a tough season already – no wins in seven games – and this had been another narrow defeat to go alongside the agonizing loss to England in the Five Nations. Perhaps my interception pass in our last championship match against the French was in his thoughts and he had finally lost patience with me. Nevertheless, there should be no scenario that justifies publicly hanging a player out to dry in what I believe is the ultimate team game. Coaches who do this deflect the criticism away from themselves and the team, whether or not that is their intention. There’s a great quote by American football coach Bear Bryant, who said: ‘If anything goes bad – I did it. If anything goes good – we did it. If anything goes really, really good – congratulations guys, you did it.’
Back in Buenos Aires I got a surprise by being named at stand-off for the Second Test – a strange change of fortune but I wasn’t complaining. It was the beginning of a volte-face in the management’s dealings with me. I am positive that this had much to do with the influence of the SRU Director of Rugby, Jim Telfer, who had flown out to Argentina to take in our final match. He talked me up to the press and was being very positive about my long-term international future. He even stayed behind after our final team run when I did some extra kicking, offering me encouragement and helping return the balls to me. Jim had never coached me up to this point and this treatment was a surprise, as he had a reputation for being a hard taskmaster, more used to shouting at his players. He was genuinely trying to help and I had always felt he rated me as a player. I was touched that he was going out of his way to get me in a better frame of mind for the following day’s match.
I played better, making some yards with the ball-in-hand and knocking over a drop goal, but in many ways it hadn’t been that different to my performance in the First Test. The team improved slightly, although we still couldn’t shake off the Argentine spoiling tactics and we suffered yet another narrow defeat. Our goal-kicking again let us down as it had done throughout the tour – our overall strike rate was a mere eighteen goals from forty-nine kicks. On this occasion, Graham Shiel and Mike Dods missed five attempts between them. In contrast, Argentina’s Santiago Méson had a 100 per cent return and we succumbed to a 19–17 loss.
We almost salvaged a win in the last minute, but a couple of bizarre incidents – or maybe fate – kept us from scoring. First, late in the second half Argentina tried to make a substitution but didn’t actually take anyone off and, for a few minutes, had sixteen players on the field. The illegal ‘replacement’, Leandro Bouza, was fast becoming my nemesis – he had charged down a clearance kick of mine to score a try two years earlier in the Students World Cup quarter-final. As luck would have it, he again got his hands to another kick, this time charging down my attempted drop-goal. Finally the referee noticed there was one too many Argentine players on the field and we were back to fifteen against fifteen going into injury-time.
As we progressed into the Argentine 22-m I called for the ball, seeing that we had an overlap to the right. However, calling for the ball on the left-hand side of the ruck was our ebullient hooker, Kevin McKenzie. He was probably the loudest member of our squad, and it was no doubt for this reason that Bryan Redpath passed the ball to him instead of his halfback partner on the right. Wee Kev then lined himself up for a drop-goal that would have made him an instant hero. However, infamy beckoned as he scuffed the ball tamely along the ground. He will be forever remembered not for having the guts to go for the winning kick, but as that Scottish hooker who nearly had a fresh air trying to drop a goal. It was an ignominious – yet fitting – end to what would remain the only tour that very nearly managed to do what I once would have thought impossible: destroy my enthusiasm for rugby.
Courage is the ability to get up when things are getting you down, to get up and fight back. Never to know defeat, let alone accept it; to have principles, be they of fitness or morality, and stick by them; to do what you feel you must do, not because it is the popular thing to do but because it is the right thing to do. Courage is skill, plus dedication, plus fitness, plus honesty, plus fearlessness.
Bill Shankly
At the end of the tour to Argentina my left knee was injected with cortisone to try to put an end to the pain I’d suffered throughout the season. It had been a difficult twelve months and I was desperate for a change of scene. Along with my close friend and fellow Scotland cap Derek Stark, I set off to Florida for five weeks. As our trip coincided with the football World Cup in the US, we spent our time watching the round ball game and avoiding thinking about rugby.
My knee didn’t improve, despite the injection. Also, something wasn’t right with my wrist – I winced whenever we did any weight training (or when Derek coerced me into being his beach volleyball partner). When I returned to Scotland I had to undergo two operations. The first was on my knee to clean out my patella tendon. Then, after a precautionary x-ray on my wrist, it was revealed that my scaphoid had broken once again, the fracture probably occurring during Scotland’s Five Nations campaign. The next step was to have a pin