Scotland national rugby union team

Scotland
ScotlandRugbyLogo.png
Union Scottish Rugby Union
Emblem(s) the Thistle
Ground(s) Murrayfield Stadium
Coach(es) England Andy Robinson
Captain(s) Mike Blair and Chris Cusiter
Most caps Chris Paterson (100)
Top scorer Chris Paterson (750)
Most tries Ian Smith, Tony Stanger (24)
Team kit
Change kit
First international
(also the world's first)
 Scotland 4 - 1 England 
(27 March 1871)
Largest win
 Scotland 100 - 8 Japan 
(13 November 2004)
Worst defeat
 Scotland 10 - 68 South Africa 
(6 December 1997)
World Cup
Appearances 6 (First in 1987)
Best result 4th, 1991

The Scotland national rugby union team represent Scotland in international rugby union. Rugby union in Scotland is administered by the Scottish Rugby Union. The Scotland rugby union team is currently ranked seventh in the IRB World Rankings as at 21/06/10. They annually take part in the Six Nations and participate in the Rugby World Cup, which takes place every four years.

Scottish rugby dates back to 1871, where they beat England in the first international rugby union match at Raeburn Place. Scotland competed in the Five Nations from the inaugural tournament in 1883, winning it 14 times outright—including the last ever Five Nations in 1999—and sharing it another 8. In 2000 the competition accepted a sixth competitor, Italy, thus forming the Six Nations. Since this change, Scotland have yet to win the competition. The Rugby World Cup was introduced in 1987 and Scotland have competed in all five competitions, the last being in 2007. Scotland's best finish came in 1991, where they lost to the All Blacks in the third place play-off.

Scotland have a strong rivalry with the English national team. They both annually compete for the Calcutta Cup. Each year, this fixture is played out as part of the Six Nations. England are the current holders after defeating Scotland 26–12 at Twickenham in the 2009 Six Nations and retaining the trophy with a 15–15 draw at Scotland's home ground of Murrayfield in the 2010 edition. Whilst Scotland have a draw and two wins against England in the sides' last three meetings at Murrayfield, they have recorded few victories over their "Auld Enemy" in recent years, beating them just four times since 1990. Furthermore, their last away victory over England was in 1983.

Contents

History

1871-1924

The Scots issue a challenge

The newspaper notice advertising the very first rugby international match - inconspicuous by being slotted in between other items. (From The Scotsman, 27.3.1871) In December 1870 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 English could hardly ignore such a challenge and this led to the first-ever rugby international match being played at Raeburn Place, Edinburgh, on Monday 27 March 1871. The Scots won the encounter by a goal and a try to a solitary try scored by England (a points scoring system had not then been devised). 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.

The Calcutta Cup

Lineout in England-Scotland game, 2007

The Calcutta Cup was gifted to the Rugby Football Union in 1878 by the members of the short-lived Calcutta Rugby Club. The members had decided to disband: the cup was crafted from melted-down silver rupees which became available when the Club's funds were withdrawn from the bank. The Cup is unique in that it is competed for annually only by England and Scotland. The first Calcutta Cup match was played in 1879 and, since that time, over 100 matches have taken place.

1925-1945

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.

1946-1973

Official internationals resumed in the 1946-7 season. In the Spring of 1946, Scotland played and defeated a strong New Zealand and Forces team.

The period after World War Two was not a successful one for Scotland. In 1951, the touring Springboks massacred Scotland 44-0 scoring nine tries, a then record defeat. Scotland suffered 17 successive defeats between February 1951 and February 1955, scored only 54 points in these 17 games: 11 tries, six conversions, and four penalties.

The teams from 1955-63 were an improvement. There were no wins over England, but three of the games were drawn and only twice was the margin of defeat more than a single. 1964 was a good year for Scotland. New Zealand were held to a 0-0 draw, the last international match in which no points were scored. The Calcutta Cup was won 15-6, the first time since 1950 and they shared the Five Nations title in 1964 with Wales.

In 1971 the SRU appointed Bill Dickinson as their head coach, after years of avoidance, as it was their belief that rugby should remain an amateur sport. He was officially designated as an "adviser to the captain".

Scotland were the first of the Home 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. These teams play in international club competitions such as the Heineken Cup and the Celtic League.

1974-2000

Jim Telfer became national coach in 1980.

Scotland toured Australia and won the first test, which to date is Scotland's only away victory against any of the big three Southern Hemisphere sides. After this, the 1983 season was a disappointment, with only one victory at Twickenham in the last match.

The 1983-84 season brought a draw with the All Blacks 25-25 in the late autumn and their second Grand Slam captained by Jim Aitken. Jim Telfer stood down after the Grand Slam to concentrate on his professional career as a school master. He was succeeded by his assistant, the former Hawick fly-half, Colin Telfer.

Scotland went to the first World Cup, played in New Zealand and Australia in the summer of 1987. Rutherford, the team’s general and controlling influence, badly injured his knee on an unauthorised tour of Bermuda. He broke down after less than a quarter of an hour of the first World Cup match against France and never played for Scotland again. Scotland had been in the lead but the match finished level and Scotland had to face New Zealand in the quarter-final. They lost.

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" 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.

The second World Cup took place in 1991 with matches shared between the Five Nations. Scotland won their pool, though the game against Ireland was close, and then beat Western Samoa in the quarter-final. They went out to England in the semi-final held at Murrayfield to a Rob Andrew drop goal. In the third place play-off they were again beaten by New Zealand.

The third World Cup, held in South Africa, came around in 1995. The tournament followed a familiar pattern: a narrow defeat by France, thanks to an injury-time try, meant that, as second in the pool, they faced a quarter-final against New Zealand and were eliminated.

Scotland also won the last-ever Five Nations Championship in 1999 with some dashing displays of 15-man rugby and to a last minute win by Wales over England, but that year’s World Cup ended the usual way, with a quarter-final defeat by New Zealand.

They 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.

2003 season & the future

Scotland v Ireland 2007

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.

Under Frank Hadden

Frank Hadden, the head coach of Edinburgh Gunners (previously a PE teacher at Merchiston Castle School in Edinburgh), was appointed interim coach for the 2005 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.

In the first match of the 2006 Six Nations campaign, against France, Scotland won 20-16, and this was the first time since 1999 that they had beaten France. Scotland also beat England 18-12 at home at Murrayfield on February 25, 2006 to reclaim the Calcutta Cup.

11 November 2006 Scotland 44-6 Romania

In the 2006 Autumn internationals Scotland won two of three fixtures. They convincingly beat Romania and put up a solid first half performance against the Pacific Islanders. In the final match against Australia, Scotland failed to impress. A sound first half performance was squandered with an uncharacteristicly poor defence in the second. Australia went on to win the game 44-15. The series provided a mixture of advances and setbacks. Scotland lost several key players through injury, notbly captain Jason White suffered a knee injury and missed the entire 2007 Six Nations Championship.

Scotland suffered a humiliating defeat on February 24, 2007 when they became the first Six Nations team to lose at home to Italy, 17-37. This was Italy's biggest ever victory over Scotland, home or away. After only six minutes of the match Scotland were already trailing 0-21, due to a clearance kick being charged down and two interceptions by the Italians (caused by poor choice of game plan and sloppy passing in the 9/10 channel). Man of the match was awarded to Italian Alessandro Troncon, who scored a late try to put the match out of reach.

Later that year, the side travelled to France for the rugby world cup. They fought their way through a difficult group and made it to the quarter finals where they were knocked out by Argentina.

Despite the promising World Cup, Scotland did not emerge into the Six Nations as the dark horses the media had predicted. Scotland opened their campaign at home but lost 27-6 to France. Pressure on Frank Hadden started to intensify after round 2 as Scotland lost 30-15 to a rejuvenated Wales side who could have scored more. Scotland finally managed to score a try, against Ireland, despite losing. They didn't need to score a try against England however as they regained the Calcutta Cup with a 15-9 victory in a dull contest. Scotland scored two tries against Italy but lost thanks to a drop goal in the last minute to go down 23-20. Scotland managed to avoid the wooden spoon on scoring difference but it was a disappointing campaign. They then toured Argentina to play two tests against Argentina. They lost the first test 21-15 and won the second 26-14.

In the 2009 Six Nations campaign, Scotland won just one match for a second consecutive year (against Italy) and thus, on 2 April 2009 Frank Hadden vacated the head coach position of the national side. On 4 June 2009, ex-England, Edinburgh and Bath coach Andy Robinson was named head coach.

The Robinson era

Former England coach Andy Robinson became Scotland coach in time for the 2009 Autumn Internationals. Scotland's form picked up with a 23–10 victory over Fiji and a memorable 9–8 win against Australia (the first win over the Wallabies for 27 years) at Murrayfield.

Scotland went into the 2010 Six Nations with a renewed confidence, hoping to build off the successes in the autumn. After losing their first match to a superior French side, Scotland looked to turn the corner against Wales in Cardiff. They scored two tries in the opening quarter of the match and held a 24-14 lead with seven minutes remaining. However, two players were sin-binned in that period, and Scotland strangely opted not to kick the ball into touch after Wales had tied the game just short of the 80 minute mark. The resulting passage of play saw Wales score the winning try and leave Scotland frustrated. The frustration continued in a loss to Italy and a draw with England. However, in the final rugby match at Croke Park, Scotland stole the occasion, dominating the set pieces and continually attacking. They won the match against Ireland 23-20 on a last-minute penalty by Dan Parks, denying the Irish the Triple Crown and assuring they themselves would avoid the wooden spoon.

The championship was highlighted by Parks' influential return to the international foray, and the outstanding play of the 'Killer B' back row: Kelly Brown, John Barclay, and Johnnie Beattie.

In the 2010 Summer Internationals, Scotland toured Argentina and recorded their first ever away series victory, beating the Pumas in two tests, 24-16 and 13-9.

Thistle and the anthem

The Scotland team lines up for the national anthem

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 motto of the Kings of Scotland, and also of Scotland's premier chivalric order, the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle, and of the Scots Guards (the latter both "belonging" to the monarch).

The Flower of Scotland has been used since 1990 as Scotland's unofficial national anthem. It was written by Roy Williamson of the Corries in 1967, and adopted by the SRU to replace God Save the Queen. In the first year of using The Flower of Scotland as an anthem, Scotland walked onto the pitch at the beginning of the Five Nations Championship deciding match against England. This combination was explosive and Scotland went on to beat England 13-7 and win the Five Nations Championship with a Grand Slam.

Strip

Scotland have traditionally worn navy blue jerseys, white shorts and blue socks. The team sponsor used to be The Famous Grouse, a brand of Scotch whisky whose logo is shown on the team jersey and shorts. In France, where alcohol sponsorship is banned by law, the regular logo was replaced with "TFG". On the occasion that Scotland is the home side and the opposing team normally wears dark colours, Scotland will use its change strip. Traditionally this is a white jersey with navy blue shorts and socks. For a brief period, when Cotton Oxford were the shirt sponsors, the white shirt was replaced by a bright orange one with orange and blue hoops on the sleeves. This was first used against the New Zealand Māori November 14, 1998. This change strip was replaced by the traditional white one just two years later. Also during this sponsorship deal, purple was introduced to the traditional blue jersey. This was a significant departure from the traditional colours of blue and white, although purple is inspired from the thistle flower.

On September 3, 2007 it was announced that Rangers F.C. chairman Sir David Murray's company would become the new shirt sponsor, investing £2.7 million over the next three years. This came as The Famous Grouse ended its 17 year relationship with the team the month prior to this. The Famous Grouse however, have maintained a low profile link to the Scottish Rugby Union by becoming the main spirit sponsor. This deal is thought to be worth a tenth of the original cost and forbids the Scottish Rugby Union from affiliating itself from any other whisky manufacturer.

There is a long running campaign to have the word "Alba", which is Gaelic for Scotland on the national rugby strip.[1] .[2] Since 2005, the SFA have supported the use of Scots Gaelic on their teams's strip in recognition of the language's revival in Scotland.[3]

Record

Six Nations

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.)

 
England

France

Ireland

Italy

Scotland

Wales
Tournaments 110 80 110 11 110 110
Outright Wins (Shared Wins)
Home Nations 5 (4) - 4 (3) - 9 (2) 7 (3)
Five Nations 17 (6) 12 (8) 6 (5) - 5 (6) 15 (8)
Six Nations 3 5 1 0 0 2
Overall 25 (10) 17 (8) 11 (8) 0 (0) 14 (8) 24 (11)
Grand Slams 12 9 2 0 3 10
Triple Crowns 23 N/A 10 N/A 10 19

World Cup

Scotland has competed in every Rugby World Cup since the inaugural tournament in 1987. Their best finish was fourth in 1991. In their semi-final on October 26, 1991 Scotland lost 6–9 to England at Murrayfield after Gavin Hastings missed a penalty almost in front of and a short distance from the posts. On October 30 Scotland lost the third-place play-off to New Zealand in Cardiff 13–6. Since then they have qualified for the quarter-finals in every tournament, but have not since qualified for the semi-finals.

Year Stage Team Score Team Venue
1987 Pool 4  France 20-20  Scotland Lancaster Park
1987 Pool 4  Scotland 60-21  Zimbabwe Athletic Park
1987 Pool 4  Romania 28-55  Scotland Carisbrook
1987 Quarter-final  New Zealand 30-3  Scotland Lancaster Park
1991 Pool B  Scotland 47-9  Japan Murrayfield
1991 Pool B  Scotland 51-12  Zimbabwe Murrayfield
1991 Pool B  Scotland 24-15  Ireland Murrayfield
1991 Quarter-final  Scotland 28-6  Western Samoa Murrayfield
1991 Semi-final  Scotland 6-9  England Murrayfield
1991 Third-place play-off  Scotland 6-13  New Zealand Cardiff
1995 Pool D  Côte d'Ivoire 0-89  Scotland Rustenburg
1995 Pool D  Scotland 41-5  Tonga Pretoria
1995 Pool D  France 22-19  Scotland Pretoria
1995 Quarter-final  New Zealand 48-30  Scotland Pretoria
1999 Pool 1  Scotland 29-46  South Africa Murrayfield
1999 Pool 1  Scotland 43-12  Uruguay Murrayfield
1999 Pool 1  Scotland 48-0  Spain Murrayfield
1999 Quarter-final play-off  Scotland 35-20  Samoa Murrayfield
1999 Quarter-final  Scotland 18-30  New Zealand Murrayfield
2003 Pool B  Scotland 32-11  Japan Townsville
2003 Pool B  Scotland 39-15  United States Brisbane
2003 Pool B  France 51-9  Scotland Sydney
2003 Pool B  Scotland 22-20  Fiji Aussie Stadium
2003 Quarter-final  Australia 33-16  Scotland Brisbane
2007 Pool C  Scotland 56-10  Portugal Saint-Étienne
2007 Pool C  Scotland 42-0  Romania Murrayfield
2007 Pool C  Scotland 0-40  New Zealand Murrayfield
2007 Pool C  Scotland 18-16  Italy Saint-Étienne
2007 Quarter-final  Argentina 19-13  Scotland Stade de France

Overall

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 Firth of 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.

Their Test match record against all nations:[4]

Against Played Won Lost Drawn  % Won
 Argentina 12 5 7 0 41.7
 Australia 25 7 18 0 28
 Barbarians 11 2 8 1 18.2
 Canada[5] 4 3 1 0 75
 England 124 41 66 17 33.1
 Fiji 5 4 1 0 80
 France 81 34 44 3 42
 Ireland 121 63 53 5 52.1
 Italy 12 8 4 0 66.7
 Côte d'Ivoire 1 1 0 0 100
 Japan 7 6 1 0 85.7
 New Zealand 27 0 25 2 0
 Pacific Islanders 1 1 0 0 100
 Portugal 2 2 0 0 100
 Romania 12 10 2 0 83.3
 Samoa 6 5 0 1 83.3
 South Africa 18 4 14 0 22.2
 Spain 1 1 0 0 100
 Tonga 2 2 0 0 100
 United States 3 3 0 0 100
 Uruguay 3 3 0 0 100
 Wales 114 48 63 3 42.1
 Zimbabwe 2 2 0 0 100
Total 573 242 299 32 42.2

Players

Current Squad

Scotland squad for their training camp in St Andrews. Johnnie Beattie is recovering from injury but will be in attendance. [6]

Head Coach: Andy Robinson

Position Player Date of Birth/Age Caps Club/Province
Hooker Ross Ford 23 April 1984 (1984-04-23) (age 26) 40 Scotland Edinburgh
Hooker Dougie Hall 24 September 1980 (1980-09-24) (age 30) 31 Scotland Glasgow Warriors
Hooker Scott Lawson 28 September 1981 (1981-09-28) (age 29) 22 England Gloucester
Prop Geoff Cross 11 December 1982 (1982-12-11) (age 28) 2 Scotland Edinburgh
Prop Alasdair Dickinson 11 September 1983 (1983-09-11) (age 27) 18 England Gloucester
Prop Allan Jacobsen 22 September 1978 (1978-09-22) (age 32) 47 Scotland Edinburgh
Prop Moray Low 28 November 1984 (1984-11-28) (age 26) 8 Scotland Glasgow Warriors
Prop Euan Murray 7 August 1980 (1980-08-07) (age 30) 32 England Northampton Saints
Prop Kyle Traynor 27 February 1986 (1986-02-27) (age 24) 3 Scotland Edinburgh
Lock Richie Gray 24 August 1989 (1989-08-24) (age 21) 3 Scotland Glasgow Warriors
Lock Jim Hamilton 17 November 1982 (1982-11-17) (age 28) 29 Scotland Edinburgh
Lock Nathan Hines 29 November 1976 (1976-11-29) (age 34) 64 Ireland Leinster
Lock Alastair Kellock (vc) 14 June 1981 (1981-06-14) (age 29) 27 Scotland Glasgow Warriors
Lock Scott MacLeod 3 March 1979 (1979-03-03) (age 31) 22 Scotland Edinburgh
Flanker John Barclay 24 November 1986 (1986-11-24) (age 24) 20 Scotland Glasgow Warriors
Flanker Kelly Brown 8 June 1982 (1982-06-08) (age 28) 37 England Saracens
Flanker Alan MacDonald 21 October 1985 (1985-10-21) (age 25) 4 Scotland Edinburgh
Flanker Alasdair Strokosch 21 February 1983 (1983-02-21) (age 27) 17 England Gloucester
Number 8 Richie Vernon 7 July 1987 (1987-07-07) (age 23) 3 Scotland Glasgow Warriors
Scrum-half Mike Blair (c) 20 April 1981 (1981-04-20) (age 29) 64 Scotland Edinburgh
Scrum-half Chris Cusiter (c) 13 June 1982 (1982-06-13) (age 28) 52 Scotland Glasgow Warriors
Scrum-half Rory Lawson 12 March 1981 (1981-03-12) (age 29) 20 England Gloucester
Fly-half Phil Godman 20 May 1982 (1982-05-20) (age 28) 23 Scotland Edinburgh
Fly-half Ruaridh Jackson 12 February 1988 (1988-02-12) (age 23) 23 Scotland Glasgow Warriors
Fly-half Dan Parks 26 May 1978 (1978-05-26) (age 32) 53 Wales Cardiff Blues
Centre Ben Cairns 29 September 1985 (1985-09-29) (age 25) 7 Scotland Edinburgh
Centre Nick De Luca 1 February 1984 (1984-02-01) (age 27) 19 Scotland Edinburgh
Centre Max Evans 28 December 1983 (1983-12-28) (age 27) 13 Scotland Glasgow Warriors
Centre Alex Grove 30 November 1987 (1987-11-30) (age 23) 3 Scotland Edinburgh
Centre Graeme Morrison 17 October 1982 (1982-10-17) (age 28) 25 Scotland Glasgow Warriors
Wing Simon Danielli 8 November 1979 (1979-11-08) (age 31) 26 Ireland Ulster
Wing Sean Lamont 15 January 1981 (1981-01-15) (age 30) 47 Wales Scarlets
Wing Jim Thompson 5 November 1984 (1984-11-05) (age 26) 0 Scotland Edinburgh
Wing Nikki Walker 5 March 1982 (1982-03-05) (age 28) 15 Wales Ospreys
Fullback Rory Lamont 10 October 1982 (1982-10-10) (age 28) 23 France Toulon
Fullback Hugo Southwell 14 May 1980 (1980-05-14) (age 30) 54 France Stade Français
Fullback Chris Paterson 30 March 1978 (1978-03-30) (age 32) 100 Scotland Edinburgh

Notable players

Four former Scotland players have been inducted into the International Rugby Hall of Fame:

McGeechan and 19th-century great Bill Maclagan are members of the IRB Hall of Fame.

Greatest XV

A Greatest Ever XV was selected by popular vote on the SRU's website.

Coaches

Noteworthy coaches (also players): Ian McGeechan, Jim Telfer

Unlike countries of a similarly small size, Scotland very rarely appoint foreign coaches. The most recent of these is the Australian Matt Williams who was sacked with his staff early in 2005 and succeeded by Frank Hadden, a Scot. 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 named as head coach in autumn 2005 and left the post on on 2 April 2009 after a second consecutive disappointing six nations where they finished second bottom after winning just one match.[7] On 4 June 2009, Andy Robinson was named head coach; though an Englishman, he had been the head coach of Edinburgh Rugby and joint coach of Scotland A before being promoted to his current position.

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.

Here is a list of all the national team coaches since the SRU first appointed Bill Dickinson to the position in 1971.

Name Tenure Tests Won Drew Lost
Scotland Bill Dickinson 1971-1977 27 14 0 13
Scotland Nairn McEwan 1977 – 1980 14 1 2 11
Scotland Jim Telfer 1980 – 1985 33 13 2 18
Scotland Derrick Grant 1986 – 1988 13 8 1 4
Scotland Ian McGeechan 1988 – 1993 39 20 1 18
Scotland Jim Telfer 1994 – 1999 53 21 2 30
Scotland Ian McGeechan 2000 – 2003 43 18 1 24
Australia Matt Williams 2003 – 2005 17 3 0 14
Scotland Frank Hadden 2005 – 2009 41 16 0 25
England Andy Robinson 2009 – 10 5 1 4

See also

Sources

References

External links