THE last time that Scotland went to Twickenham in search of a Triple Crown, they were in even finer fettle than the current team. In fact, having won in Paris as well as at home to Ireland and Wales, they were going for a Grand Slam in London in 1995 - as were England.
Five years previously, the same scenario had seen the Scots come out on top, with a 13-7 victory at Murrayfield giving them just the third Grand Slam in their history. Some of that triumphant team were still there in 1995 - Kenny Milne at hooker, Craig Chalmers and the Hastings brothers among the backs. A few others (Gregor Townsend, Kenny Logan and David Hilton) would still be around four years later when Scotland won the last ever Five Nations Championship, albeit after a narrow defeat by England.
So this was a talented, self-confident team, one accustomed to playing entertaining and enterprising rugby. And yet on the day they did not quite have enough to win, going down 24-12 in a relatively dull game dominated by the boot.
“We went into the match as underdogs, but we had been quite convincing in our previous games,” Chalmers recalled. “We beat Wales and Ireland at Murrayfield by the same score, 26-13, and then we beat France in Paris for the first time since Jim Telfer scored the winning try back in 1969. So although we used to regularly beat Ireland in those days and defeating Wales was fairly common too, that result against the French gave us hope we could do it against England.
“Being a Grand Slam decider for both sides, the match was billed as a rerun of 1990. It was a really nervous occasion because of that - England certainly didn’t want to have to relive 1990 again.
“We had come close a few times before that. In 1989 we drew 12-12 after being 12-6 up - that was my second cap, I think. In 1991 we lost 21-12, and in 1993 it was 26-12. But I broke my arm in that game, and we had been winning 6-3 when it happened and I had to go off, so I count that as a sort of win!
“There was quite a lot of animosity leading up to the game, and a few wives and girlfriends got some verbal abuse from England fans in the stands during the match. There was certainly as much animosity at Twickenham as I can remember - the usual Scotland-England rivalry can be pretty intense, but it got a bit out of hand that day.”
On the pitch, too, matters got a bit out of hand at times, and Peter Wright was yellow-carded - harshly, according to Scottish reports at the time - for rucking Will Carling out of the way. It was the first time a Scot had been sinbinned, and the loss of the prop for 10 minutes added to the pressure on the visitors, who were also guilty of other acts of indiscipline, as referee Brian Stirling saw it.
“We gave away a lot of penalties,” Chalmers added. “Rob Andrew was in form, and he ended up scoring from seven out of his eight attempts.”
It was Chalmers himself who opened the scoring with a drop goal, and the Melrose stand-off added another after half an hour, by which time Andrew, his opposite number, had put England ahead with two penalties. Two more penalties before the break from the home number 10 made it 12-6 to England at the interval.
Andrew stretched that lead with the first score of the second half but Gavin Hastings kept his team in touch with his own third penalty. That process was not long afterwards to make it 18-12 going into the final quarter, but then Andrew dropped a goal to put his team more than a full score ahead. In such a closely fought contest, that nine-point lead had a decisive feel to it, and just to make sure Andrew added another penalty deep into stoppage time.
“Gavin scored with two penalties and I had two drop-goals, but there were not many try-scoring opportunities,” Chalmers added. “The biggest one, I think, came from a break just before half-time, when we really should have scored.
“It was a big England team compared to what we had, and I seem to remember their back row having a big height advantage. I remember Ben Clarke having a really good game - I got smashed by him at one point. I went in low to tackle him, but he dipped his shoulder and just smashed me out the way.
“We played pretty well for most of the game. We gave it a really good shot, but we just didn’t have enough. We weren’t necessarily the best Scotland side ever, but the team had gone down there believing we could win.
“We wanted to play more freely - we tried to get that fast, chaotic game going that England didn’t like. But England were really well structured, and as I said we gave away too many penalties and Rob crucified us.”
Scotland: G Hastings; C Joiner, G Townsend, S Hastings, K Logan; C Chalmers, B Redpath; D Hilton (J Manson 43), K Milne, P Wright, D Weir, S Campbell, R Wainwright, I Morrison, E Peters.
Scorers: Pens: G Hastings 2. Drop goals: Chalmers 2.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here