Talk of the Toony: The Autobiography of Gregor Townsend. Gregor Townsend
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team in their priorities. Our shoestring budget provided us with the scariest plane journey I’ve experienced and some very basic accommodation once we got to our Italian base in Arenzano, a seaside town an hour from Genoa.
Despite a ramshackle and chaotic beginning, we bonded as a group and went on to play some great rugby. We qualified for the last eight as runners-up, having lost to a strong French side that included the likes of Fabien Pelous, Thierry Lacroix and Olivier Brouzet. Although we had been leading them after the break, their experience told and it was no surprise to see them go on and win the tournament. I think we had won their respect, though, and we had a good time with them afterwards in the bar. Our players couldn’t believe their luck the next day when the French turned up at our hotel and handed us some of their stylish Eden Park kit in exchange for some of our gear. They must have felt sorry for us – our T-shirts wouldn’t have looked out of place at a primary school gym class.
The subsequent draw for the quarter-finals gave our management a few headaches. The matches were to be played over two days the following weekend, although we only had enough money to stay in our hotel until the Sunday morning. We put in a request to have our game against Argentina brought forward to the Saturday but the opposition refused, citing the need for an extra day’s rest. It was an embarrassing situation but didn’t ultimately affect our preparations. Mind you, I remember the look of disgust the hotel manager gave us as we stayed an extra night on credit.
We put in a valiant effort against the Argentines, who had a huge pack and looked like they had a lot of postgraduates in their team. The French squad had turned up to support us and sang ‘Flower of Scotland’ as best they could from the stands. We were very much in the game and the final result – a 29–18 defeat – was down to their superior scrummaging and a costly mistake by me. I was close to running on empty by the second half as too many matches that season – my first season of senior rugby – had finally caught up with me. A charged-down kick gifted Argentina six points at a crucial stage of the match and left me distraught – not for the first time that year. I was glad the summer break was on the horizon.
I spent my time working as a plasterer’s labourer in Gala and trying to get on top of my studies. I had been forced to put back my exams until September having been in Australia when I was originally due to take them. Being a model student at Edinburgh University didn’t really fit with my efforts at furthering my rugby career. There were many times I would have to miss lectures and tutorials, but I had deliberately chosen a subject – history and politics – that wasn’t too intensive in the hope that I would have free time to catch up and also fit in some extra fitness and weight training.
University had a similar raison d’être as amateur rugby – enjoyment. I’ve heard university described as a holiday of indulgence, which is hard to deny. I suddenly found myself free to drift, happily suspended from the real world. It was no wonder I became known for having my head in the clouds. Spending an hour discussing the American mid-term elections or listening to a lecture on seventeenth-century Scottish history was a delight and if rugby had turned professional five years earlier, I would have missed it terribly.
As well as a sense of freedom, I enjoyed the anonymity of university life. Strolling through the Edinburgh’s Meadows on the way to a lecture with hundreds of fellow students was a pleasant departure from the expectations and pressures of trying to break into the Scotland team. I remember lining up for the national anthems at Lansdowne Road two years later and being distracted by someone trying to wave at me. I looked around and saw a guy who was in my political theory tutorial. His face was a picture of utter disbelief – he hadn’t a clue that I was a Scotland rugby player.
I became less anonymous when I was presented with a sponsored car from a garage in the Borders. My name was emblazoned on both sides and I used to dread parking it in case anyone noticed me. Years later, Duncan Hodge, a top bloke who also played stand-off for Scotland, admitted to me that his student mates used to try and find my car after a night out and then urinate over each of the door handles. I suppose I had been asking for it.
The following season I was quickly back in the groove with Gala, enjoying an excellent run of games. However, we blew our chances of winning the championship on the penultimate week of the season. We were only a point behind Melrose with two games to go, the first of which was away to already-relegated Dundee. Our final fixture was a home match against Melrose and all the talk in the Borders was about what a fantastic climax to the season it would be – almost like a play-off for the title. There was predicted to be a record crowd at Netherdale and I think we got carried away with it all when our focus really should have been on first beating Dundee. I remember talking with the Gala players on the bus to Dundee about moves that might work well against the Melrose backline. We were far too complacent against a fired-up home team and lost the match by a point. It always brings a smile to Andy Nicol’s face – the Dundee captain that day – when I remind him that it was the biggest disappointment of my time playing for Gala.
That season also saw me move position for the first time in my career, as I was picked at outside-centre for the South in the Inter-District championship and also for Scotland ‘A’ in a one-off match against Spain in Madrid. I continued to run at stand-off for Gala, but there was now a lot of speculation that I might get a start in the number 13 jersey for that season’s Five Nations. As Sean Lineen had recently retired, pundits predicted that the Scottish midfield would include either Graham Shiel or myself at centre to play alongside established backs Craig Chalmers and Scott Hastings.
The selectors showed their intentions with the team they picked to play Italy in December. It was Gavin Hastings’ first game as Scotland captain, although caps were not awarded for the fixture. I was chosen as outside-centre, partnering Scott Hastings in the midfield. Duncan Paterson, the team manager, said that the five debutants were very unlucky not to be winning their first caps. Scotland, like other countries at the time, still deemed Italy not to be of a standard worthy of awarding Test-match status.
Although we just sneaked a 22–17 win over the fast-improving Italians, I’d felt reasonably comfortable and was getting increasingly used to playing at 13. There were only two more games before Scotland’s opening Five Nations match against Ireland and I was given two further opportunities to play at centre. First up was an A international against Ireland and then the National trial. This time I was picked to play for the Blues (probables). Unfortunately the timing of my first real rugby injury couldn’t have been any worse as I tore my medial knee ligament after only twenty minutes. It was only a minor tear, but it was enough to keep me out of action for three weeks, consequently missing the Irish match. Even the help of a machine used to heal horses’ joints couldn’t reduce the recovery time. After Scotland won their opening game, Graham Shiel held onto his place in the centre and I had to be content with sitting on the bench for the remaining three matches.
By the time of our final match, away to England, I was resigned to the fact that I wouldn’t be winning my first cap that season. At the time, replacements could only come onto the field for an injured player. As no one in their right mind would want to quit a Test match unless it was a serious injury, we didn’t even bother leaving our seats during play. All the subs were aware that if any player suffered a bad injury our team doctor, James Robson, would throw a towel onto the ground – these were the days before the medics had a radio link with the coaching staff. After twenty minutes of the game, Craig Chalmers was being treated for an injury and I got told to do the obligatory warm-up just in case. I thought this was unlikely as Craig usually got up with a shake of the head and carried on playing.
I was on my way down to the touchline when I saw the doctor’s towel being lobbed onto the field. The blood started to drain from my body and I became as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. What made me even less comfortable was what coach Ian McGeechan then told me. He said that I was to go on at inside-centre, a position I had never played before, with Graham Shiel, who had been at inside-centre all season, moving to stand-off. I didn’t have time to feel disappointed about this bizarre and unexpected decision but the little confidence I had in reserve now evaporated. I did the necessary stretches as I waited for Craig Chalmers to be carried from the field. I couldn’t help looking up at the huge stands opposite, which didn’t do much to console me. I also started thinking of friends and family watching