Professional sportsmen never know when the best time is to retire. The preferred option is to ‘go out at the top’, when you are still at the height of your powers. I couldn’t see the logic in that – surely you would want to achieve as much as was possible? Another option is to wait until injuries force you out of the game. My body had been crying ‘enough’ for some time – a broken ankle, torn shoulder ligaments and a cortisone injection in my neck were some of the things I’d faced in the previous two years – but I couldn’t resist working myself back to some sort of match fitness and playing once more. In the weeks following the Ospreys game, I realized just when the right time to take your leave was – when you start to feel that rugby has become a job. When the exciting becomes mundane and challenges mere chores, then it is time to call it a day.
My last two years back in Scotland have had precious few highlights, as the overriding memories are of recovering from a stream of injuries and of striving to just make it through the day, whether it was a weights session, rugby training, video analysis or rehab work. At times I was getting by on the bare minimum, and I knew it. It’s not a sentiment I want to associate with the sport I love, especially as I’ve felt blessed at the opportunities that rugby has given me.
For the past seventeen years I have been playing, thinking and living rugby. It has taken me from the Scottish Borders to the great playing fields of the world: Twickenham, Stade de France, Lansdowne Road, Stadium Australia and Eden Park. I have crammed in eighty-two Tests for Scotland and two more for the British Lions and I have been in a privileged position to witness the incredible changes that have taken place in the game over the last two decades, as rugby has transformed into a fully professional sport. I have also been in the unique situation of playing club rugby in five different countries, and my experiences in France, South Africa, England, Australia and Scotland have not just helped my rugby but enriched my life.
Rugby has given me so much and has had a hold over me for over half of my life. I’ve found the game compelling and, if given a choice, I wouldn’t have wanted to play any other sport. I believe that, at its best, there isn’t another sport that comes close in terms of excitement, commitment and spectacle. Rugby demands bravery from its players and can contain unforgettable moments of individual brilliance and equally momentous passages of immense team effort. What is it that gives rugby its special qualities? For me it’s no single thing, but the sum of its wonderfully diverse parts – its history, its personalities and its camaraderie.
One of the best quotes I’ve heard about rugby was from a TV interview with Philippe Sella I saw when I was playing in France. He said that to be a true rugby player you have ‘to take the game, but not yourself seriously’. Most of the people I have met during my rugby career would fit this description, although it seems to be less of a prerequisite now that the sport has been chiselled down from a fun-loving amateur game to a hard-nosed, image-conscious professional sport.
Throughout the book you will see that I am an avid collector of quotes. I can only apologize for borrowing from others so much, but as Michel de Montaigne once said, ‘I quote others only the better to express myself.’
My rugby career has been a series of experiences and lessons and it has been the main source of my misery and joy. I’ve had highs and lows, triumphs and disappointments and through playing for Scotland and the Lions I have experienced the whole range of sporting emotions. The spine-tingling combination of fear and excitement before an international match is something you don’t experience in other walks of life. There is a sense of adrenaline and anticipation that is the equivalent of arriving at church on your wedding day; the moments before you turn over an exam paper; and attending a job interview – all rolled into one. It is something I will yearn for each year come the Six Nations.
There have been times when I’ve been able to step out of the moment and see that rugby has taken me to the pinnacle of sporting intensity and achievement. These are memories that stay with you forever, private recollections that make you realize how lucky you are. Standing facing an All Black ‘Haka’ with hundreds of camera flashes going off around the stadium made me aware how far-reaching the game had become. And I’ll never forget standing arm-in-arm with my Lions colleagues at Newlands Stadium in Cape Town as we approached kick-off time in the First Test. It was a balmy evening and there was a gentle breeze in the air. I was incredibly focused, but I felt myself become an onlooker as the crowd began to sing the new South African anthem ‘Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika’. It is a beautiful, mesmerizing song and I couldn’t help but hum along with the thousands of proud supporters as I realized that this was going to be one of the most significant nights of my life.
In addition to the memories, it is the people you meet over your career that make it all the more special. There are too many to mention but rugby seems to have so many ‘good guys’ – people like Derek Stark, Neil Jenkins, Tabai Matson, Jason Leonard, Anthony Hill, Carl Hogg, Tony Stanger, Francois Duboisset, Lisandro Arbizu, Semo Sititi and A. J. Venter. This book is a tribute to these and the many others that have helped me over the years. In putting this book together, I’ve been reminded of just how many people have been involved in my journey, and I would like to thank those, especially my family, who have shared in and contributed to the many wonderful times I’ve experienced.
There will no doubt be many occasions in the future that I will be wishing I was still part of a squad on tour or preparing for a Test match somewhere, but the thing I’ll miss most is the vision of a scrum-half fizzing a pass through the air into my outstretched arms, and the thrill of running on to that ball with a world of possibilities stretched out in front of me.
Inspiration starts with aspiration.
Mary Lyon
Craig, my brother, was inconsolable. He was trying hard to hold back the tears. I asked him what had happened.
‘Someone’s called off – I’m going to have to tell the others we can’t play.’
For the previous month he’d been organizing a team to enter the Ward Sevens – the highlight of the rugby calendar for any Gala youth. He had managed to recruit six of his mates from the ‘ward’ we lived in – a ward being a designated area of the town – but he had just found out on the morning of his big day that one of the team was down with the flu. He couldn’t enter a side with six players and so his hopes of winning the 1980 Under-10 trophy seemed lost.
I saw an opportunity and I wasn’t going to let it pass me by.
‘Dad, if I play then there would still be a team.’
‘No chance – you’ve never played a game of rugby before.’
‘But I’ve run about with Craig’s friends lots of times.’
‘No.’
Since the age of five I had been going to mini-rugby sessions on a Sunday morning and had joined in with the older boys who played touch rugby in the dead-ball area of Netherdale after Gala matches had ended. I knew I would be fine in my brother’s team. For the next ten minutes I pleaded with my parents to allow me to take part. I had just turned seven years old and they were obviously very reluctant to let me play. However, faced with two screaming kids, it wasn’t long before we persuaded them to change their minds. Craig was given instructions that I was to be picked as a winger and only involved in play as a last