| Scotland | |
|---|---|
| Union | Scottish Rugby Union |
| First International (also the world's first) Scotland 4 - England 1 (27 March, 1871) | |
| Largest win Scotland 100 - Japan 8 (13 November, 2004) | |
| Worst defeat Scotland 10 - South Africa 68 (6 December, 1997) | |
| World Cup | |
| Appearances | 5 (First in 1987) |
| Best result | Third/fourth place play off, 1991 (lost to New Zealand) |
The Scotland national rugby union team is Scotland's international rugby union team. They take part in international competitions notably the World Cup and the Six Nations Championship. Rugby union in Scotland is administered by the Scottish Rugby Union.
The thistle is the national flower, and also the symbol of the Scotland national rugby union team. According to legend the "guardian thistle" has played its part in the defence of Scotland against a night attack by the Danes, one of whom let out a yell of pain when he stepped barefoot on a thistle, alerting the Scottish defenders. The Latin Nemo me impune lacessit ("No-one provokes me with impunity!" in English) is an ancient Scottish motto, "me" in this case being the prickly thistle itself.
The Flower of Scotland is used as Scotland's unofficial national anthem.
In December 1870, following a series of England v. Scotland eleven-a-side football matches played in London (all of which were won by England), a group of Scots players issued a letter of challenge in The Scotsman and in Bell's Life in London, to play an England XX at the carrying game. The first ever international rugby union game was played on the cricket field of The Edinburgh Academy at Raeburn Place, Edinburgh on March 27, 1871 between England and Scotland. The Scots won the encounter by a goal and a try to a solitary try scored by England, though England got revenge at the Kennington Oval, London in the following year. (See the library of the Scottish Rugby Union for details.)
The Scots enjoyed periodic success in the early days vying with Wales in the first decade of the 20th century. However, their Triple Crown win in 1907 would be the last for eighteen years as the First World War (1914-18) and England intervened to deny them glory.
In 1897 land was purchased, by the SFU, at Inverleith, Edinburgh. Thus the SFU became the first of the Home Unions to own its own ground. The first visitors were Ireland, on 18 February 1899 (Scotland 3 Ireland 9). International rugby was played at Inverleith until 1925. The SFU bought some land and built the first Murrayfield Stadium which was opened on 21 March 1925.
In 1925 Scotland already had victories over France at Inverleith (25-4), Wales in Swansea (24-14) and Ireland in Dublin (14-8). England, the Grand Slam champions of the two previous seasons were the first visitors to Murrayfield. 70,000 spectators saw the lead change hands three times before Scotland secured a 14-11 victory which gave them their first-ever Five Nations Grand Slam.
In 1926, Scotland became the first Home nation side to defeat England at Twickenham after England had won the Grand Slam five times in eight seasons.
The outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939 brought rugby union in Scotland to a halt. The SRU cancelled all arranged trial and international matches and encouraged the member clubs to carry on as best they could. Some clubs closed down, others amalgamated and carried on playing other local clubs and, sometimes, teams from the armed forces stationed in their various areas.
The period after World War Two was not a successful one for Scotland, although they shared the Five Nations title in 1964 with Wales.
Scotland were the first of the British Isles Unions to run a truly nationwide club league. This was introduced in 1973 and still flourishes today with several of the country's original clubs still very much in evidence, such as Heriots, West of Scotland, Watsonians and the famous 'border' clubs such as Gala, Hawick, Jed-Forest, Kelso and Melrose. However the advent of professionalism saw Scotland's District championship abandoned and two (later three) 'Super Districts' formed, which have resulted in the top players generally being unavailable for their clubs.
Grand Slam winners on three occasions so far, the Scots have also won the Triple Crown a further seven times. They won their second Grand Slam in 1984, captained by Jim Aitken.
Their greatest year in the modern era, however, was 1990 when, captained by prop David Sole, their season came down to one game, a Grand Slam decider at Murrayfield against the "auld enemy" (Lowland Scots: for "old enemy"), and hot favourites, England. Sole famously walked his men onto the field with quiet but steely determination, to the delight of the partisan home crowd. Scotland won 13-7, and with it their third Grand Slam.
Scotland also won the last-ever Five Nations Championship in 1999 with some dashing displays of 15-man rugby but endured a torrid Six Nations in 2000, losing their first four straight games. Nevertheless at the last hurdle, they pulled off a magnificent 19-13 win under captain Andy Nicol over an unbeaten England at a rain-soaked Murrayfield to prove that there is still plenty of pride and passion in Scottish rugby.
After a poor start in the Six Nations 2003-04 in which Scotland did not win a single match and so qualified for rugby's version of the wooden spoon, things were believed to be steadily improving once again under the Australian coach Matt Williams, the first foreigner to coach the national team.
Despite setbacks, many new and talented young players are coming through to the top level. Yet the record for 2004 was disappointing: Played 12, Won 2, Lost 10. Williams also attempted to introduce a controversial "Fortress Scotland" policy, whereby only those currently playing in Scotland were eligible to play in the national team. Meanwhile the Scottish Rugby Union (SRU) is under new management, Chief Executive Phil Anderton (known as 'Firework Phil' for his pre-match entertainment spectacles)was leading the way back to financial solvency and implementing major reforms to reverse the decline of the game in Scotland, but he resigned in January 2005 after his boss David Mackay was forced to resign by the SRU's general committee. Since then, much effort and thought has gone into restructuring the way the game is governed in Scotland.
Frank Hadden, the head coach of Edinburgh Gunners (previously a PE teacher at Merchiston Castle School in Edinburgh), was then appointed interim coach for the summer internationals against the Barbarians and Romania, winning two from two and instilling confidence in the national side again. On the 15 September, 2005, he was appointed national coach of the Scotland team up to and including the 2007 World Cup and has so far done an excellent job. In the Autumn Internationals although Scotland lost 2 out of 3 Frank Hadden had them playing good rugby and they came close to beating Argentina and moving into 8th in the World Ranking. Sean Lamont of Glasgow Warriors ran beautiful angles and Scotland beat Samoa comfortably and in the final game against New Zealand Scotland came close to winning, although in the end lost by 19 points. [1]. In the first match of the 2006 Six Nations campaign, against France, Scotland won 20-16, and was the first time since 1999 that they had beaten France.
Best Rugby Union World Cup placing so far: fourth in the second Rugby World Cup, RWC1991. On October 26, 1991 Scotland lost 6-9 to England in a semi-final at Murrayfield after the normally reliable Gavin Hastings missed an easy penalty almost in front of and a short distance from the posts. On October 30th Scotland lost the Third-place play-off to New Zealand in Cardiff, 13-6.
Rugby Union Five Nations Championship Grand Slams (including Triple Crown): 1925, 1984, 1990.
Triple Crown: seven times winners
Scotland was also the last Five Nations Champion in 1998-99. (The following year Italy joined the competition to make it the Six Nations.)
Scotland achieved 100 points for the first time in defeating a young and inexperienced Japan side 100-8 on November 13, 2004. The previous record had been 89-0 against Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) in the first round of Rugby World Cup 1995. The game versus Japan was played at the home of St. Johnstone Football Club, McDiarmid Park, Perth. It was the first time that Scotland had ever played "North of the Forth" (i.e. the River Forth) in the Caledonian region. In the same game Chris Paterson moved ahead of Andy Irvine in the list of Scotland's all-time points scorers, though he still has some way to go to catch Gavin Hastings.
Their Test match record against leading nations (listed in order of total matches; updated to 14 February 2006) is as follows:
| Against | Played | Won | Lost | Drawn |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| England | 122 | 40 | 65 | 17 |
| Ireland | 118 | 61 | 51 | 5 |
| Wales | 111 | 47 | 61 | 3 |
| France | 79 | 34 | 42 | 3 |
| New Zealand | 24 | 0 | 22 | 2 |
| Australia | 21 | 6 | 15 | 0 |
| South Africa | 15 | 4 | 11 | 0 |
| Italy | 10 | 7 | 3 | 0 |
| Romania | 9 | 7 | 2 | 0 |
| Argentina | 6 | 1 | 5 | 0 |
| Samoa | 4 | 4 | 1 | 0 |
| Fiji | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 |
| Tonga | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| Canada | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
One match was abandoned against Ireland.
Although more recently considered underdogs of the Five Nations and Six Nations Championship (although they usually beat Italy), Scotland have managed a good many notable upset or "banana skin" victories, for example:
Home
Scotland 20 France 16 (Six Nations Championship, February 5, 2006)
Scotland 19 England 13 (Six Nations Championship, 2000)
Scotland 13 England 7 (Five Nations Championship, 1990)
Away
France v Scotland (Five Nations Championship, Paris, 1995)
Current Scottish national squad players include:
Some of the most notable former Scottish international players (The Flower of Scotland)
For more information see the SRU's list of Scotland's international players, 1871-2004.
See also the category of "Scottish rugby union footballers".
Noteworthy coaches (also players): Ian McGeechan, Jim Telfer
Recent national coaches have been foreigners. Frank Hadden a Scot, succeeded the Australian Matt Williams who was sacked with his staff early in 2005. New Zealander and former All Black captain Todd Blackadder is still coaching the Edinburgh Gunners professional team, though he will return to New Zealand soon.
Frank Hadden, the former coach of the highly successful Merchiston Castle School rugby team, and the coach of the most successful rugby team in Scotland, Edinburgh Gunners, was named interim coach for two internationals in 2005, winning them both. He was confirmed as head coach in autumn 2005. His assistants include Sean Lineen and Shade Munro.
Iain Paxton and Peter Wright agreed to take over coaching the national U-21 and U-19 sides respectively at the end of 2004. See here for details. They both have ambitions to coach the senior squad eventually.
There are currently three: Edinburgh Gunners, Glasgow Warriors, and Border Reivers. There has been talk of establishing a fourth team based in London, so far unrealised, and of bringing back the Caledonian region. They are of course the main feeder teams for the national team.
In the amateur days London Scottish provided many Scottish internationals from the London area. Now London Scottish is clawing its way back up the English divisions to the top flight after being demoted as part of the drive to professionalism in the 1990s.
This has been selected by popular vote on the SRU's website and, subject to further voting, is as follows. Naturally it tends to exclude pre-1945 players, some of whom might make an all-time great Scottish XV but whose play would only have been seen by a few fans voting in the internet age.
15 Gavin Hastings
14 Andy Irvine
13 Alan Tait
12 Jim Renwick
11 Roger Baird
10 John Rutherford
9 Gary Armstrong
8 Simon Taylor
7 Finlay Calder
6 John Jeffrey
5 Scott Murray
4 Gordon Brown
3 Iain Milne
2 Colin Deans
1 David Sole, captain
Scotland's greatest XV on the SRU website