Having shown my resolve in Tonga and then become much more relaxed and rounded in Sydney, I felt I was ready-made for international rugby. A year earlier I had been too caught up in other people’s opinions and expectations of my talent and there would have been times when I’d actually have been thinking ‘I shouldn’t be doing this’, even when I was making a break. Pace and willingness to have a go had always been my two biggest assets, but I now had a greater awareness of other aspects of play and was confident in my decision-making. Things couldn’t have been going any better – which is often the exact moment that adversity chooses to seek you out.
We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
On a clear day the Buenos Aires Sheraton has stunning views over the Rio de la Plata and beyond the river valley to the Uruguayan capital of Montevideo. Sadly, clear day or not, my room was positioned on the other side of the hotel. As I got out of bed I opened the curtains to gaze across the rooftops of the largest city in Argentina. Below me I noticed that the streets were crammed to bursting with emotional, flag-waving Argentines – just like a scene from Evita. I resisted the temptation to climb out onto the hotel balcony and deliver a song. Instead, I rushed downstairs to see what the celebrations were for.
In the hotel lobby, members of the Real Madrid team, who were also on tour in Argentina, were gathering. I met up with Bryan Redpath and Stuart Reid – two team-mates who were, like me, keen to join in with the carnival atmosphere on the streets of Buenos Aires. However, several Argentine policemen were blocking the hotel’s exit.
‘I’m sorry, you can’t go outside today. Or tomorrow. There is a demonstration being held in Buenos Aires.’
‘Surely we’ll be okay to go to the shops on the other side of the road?’
‘No – it is for your own safety.’
‘What about the Real Madrid players? Look – they’re joining in with the locals.’
‘Yes, but it is okay for them – they are not British. Don’t you know it is Malvinas Day?’
The penny finally dropped – the Malvinas, of course, are better known in English as the Falkland Islands. The policeman explained to us that Malvinas Day is officially titled ‘The Day of the War Veterans and the Fallen’ in the Falklands Islands. What the people were also demanding was the recovery of these islands.
I looked back at the crowds outside – the passion I had earlier seen in their eyes now looked a lot more like anger than celebration. Even though the Falklands War had ended over ten years before, it was clearly still an emotive subject for the Argentine people. And our hotel was situated right next to the focal point of their fury – a memorial for those killed in the conflict. We were more than happy to agree to police demands to stay in our hotel for the full forty-eight hours. Unfortunately Claudia Schiffer, who we had spotted a few times earlier that week, had just checked out, so as time passed we grew more and more frustrated and bored. Although I suppose it was preferable to being out on the streets.
Argentina was a tour I wish I could forget. My torment in trying to become an established Test player continued thousands of miles from home and I had to endure another character-building episode, just like in Tonga. Loss of confidence, loss of form, injuries and public criticism are the sporting equivalent of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. I met all four on my own personal tour of hell.
Before the tour, I had squeezed so much playing and travelling into my first three years of senior rugby that at times I wondered whether I would ever have the chance to stop and reflect – not least on how lucky I had been. Luck, of course, will always run out at some point, and before I knew it, I had more than ample time to take stock as my career was halted by injury problems.
My time in Australia had taken my game to a new level and I was playing with confidence and verve on my return to Scotland. However, following my second match back for Gala, my wrist was in severe pain and I couldn’t really take a grip of anything without wincing. An x-ray showed that I had broken my scaphoid, which meant I was facing ten to twelve weeks on the sidelines. There is never a good time to get injured, but being struck down when you are in the form of your life is hard to take. I knew that getting back to that level wasn’t going to be easy.
During my time out, I did a lot of speed work with Charlie Russell, a local sprint coach. As I had a lightweight plaster on my arm I was able to run at close to 100 per cent. Pace has been, and always will be, the most vital component when it comes to beating a defensive line, no matter how organized and compact that line is. I was sceptical whenever I was told that I was quick, but I surprised myself when during the Scotland tour to Australia in 1992 I took on winger Iwan Tukalo over 100m and won. I’d always felt that my overall speed wasn’t that great, just my change of pace or acceleration. This is what I worked on with Charlie. As a favour in return, I agreed to run for him in the New Year Sprint at Meadowbank. A handicap race held over 110 metres, the Sprint has been staged in Scotland on or around New Year’s Day annually since 1870.
As it was my debut on the pro-circuit, I was given an arbitrary handicap of six metres. This meant that I was left with 104 metres in front of me. There was another runner with a handicap of 6 m, but the rest of the field started the race in front of us, the furthest being given a handicap of 25 m. Trying hard to go on the ‘B of Bang’, I managed to get pulled back for a false start. In professional athletics, you get docked a metre for jumping the gun, so I was now facing the daunting prospect of being the back-marker in my first ever professional sprint event. The other competitors suddenly seemed to be quite far up the track. I finished in sixth place, which I was told later was a reasonable first-time effort. Mind you, there had only been six people in the race! I was desperately hoping my return to rugby wasn’t going to be such an anticlimax.
I was lucky to have missed playing against the All Blacks, as they had rampaged their way through Scottish rugby – winning 84–5 against the South and 51–15 at Murrayfield against Scotland. I had a month to play my way into the selectors’ thoughts before Scotland’s first match of the 1994 championship, away to Wales. My form was nowhere like it had been before my wrist injury. However, after the desperate performance against the All Blacks, the Scotland selectors seemed eager to make changes.
While it was obvious that I had lost momentum following my lay-off, I was selected at stand-off for the A side against Ireland, only a few weeks before the Five Nations. We won the game comfortably and my own performance was composed, but lacking the attacking edge I’d developed in Australia. Despite this, the media began to raise the bar of expectations once again after I was picked in the number 10 jersey for the Blues team in the national trial. Craig Chalmers had been demoted to the Reds. At the time the SRU Director of Rugby, Jim Telfer, commented on the recurring theme of the media building me up, by saying: ‘You begin to wonder if we expect him to bring on the oranges at half-time on top of everything else.’
The trial game as usual was a torrid affair, but a small personal triumph for me – I notched up a try in our 24–14 win. The score involved a one-on-one with Craig Chalmers, which made it even more enjoyable. With only two weeks to go before the Welsh match, I was quietly confident that my first start for Scotland would be in my preferred position of stand-off. After all, if I had been selected there in the trial, which had gone well, surely the selectors would follow this through for the next match?
Regrettably,