Fresh-faced debutants who turned into titans

Brendan Gallagher delves into some of rugby‘s most enduring images, their story and why they are still so impactful

What’s happening here?

It’s January 17, 1986 and Scotland hooker Colin Deans – the newly appointed Scotland captain – has been asked to pull over at training for a picture with the six debutants who will be lining up against France at Murrayfield the following day. In the back row, left to right, we have centre Scott Hastings, flanker Finlay Calder, Deans himself, prop David Sole and wing Matt Duncan. In the front row there is lock Jeremy Campbell Lamerton and full-back Gavin Hastings. You sense all are a little nervous despite the smiles.

What’s the story behind the picture?

Scotland had scaled the heights in 1984 with a glorious Grand Slam under coach Jim Telfer but an ageing side, under a new coach Derrick Grant, had slumped to a whitewash the following season. They didn’t lose any match by a large margin and could even have nicked a couple of games, but the wooden spoon was not good enough and big changes were afoot for the next campaign.

First Deans succeeded David Leslie as skipper and then Grant wielded the axe and introduced a new tranche of fresh, bristling talent. The Hastings brothers had been causing waves for a couple of seasons and a few months earlier Gavin had skippered Cambridge to victory in the Varsity match.

Calder had been impressive for Stewart’s Melville and Heriot’s throughout the 80s, Sole had been attracting rave reviews with Exeter University and Bath, and Matt Duncan had been prolific for the West of Scotland. Campbell Lamerton, the son of former Lions skipper Mike, had learned his rugby at Downside and Durham University and played for London Scottish and the Anglo Scots.

“The wooden spoon was not good enough and big changes were afoot for the next campaign”

What happened next?

The day after this picture was taken Scotland stopped the rot with a superb 18-17 win over France and three months later, after a long snow affected Championship, the two sides were to emerge as joint champions. But for a 22-15 defeat in Cardiff, when they outscored Wales three tries to one but fell foul of the boot of Paul Thorburn, Scotland would have taken another Slam. The one that got away.

Gavin Hastings kicked six penalties against the French to announce himself to the wider world and of course went on to be a mainstay of the Scotland side for the next nine seasons while he also skippered the 1993 Lions in New Zealand. Brother Scott was by his side throughout that period for Scotland and the Lions. Both were totem pole players for the Scots.

Calder exploded into action against France – he was an even better Test flanker than club player – and was soon among the most feared back rowers in the world and was to skipper the triumphant 1989 Lions in Australia. Yet among this plethora of great skippers it was the quietly-spoken Sole who guided Scotland to their famous Slam in 1990 when his slow deliberate march out of the tunnel before the decider against England set the tone for Scottish defiance on the day.

Why is the picture iconic

At first glance there is little particularly memorable about this hurriedly snapped picture, a cheery group on a frosty morning at training, but the knowledge of what is yet to come makes it special and poignant. The chances of such a small, slightly nervous gaggle of debutants having such a huge influence on the future of Scotland rugby, indeed British and Irish rugby, are almost negligible.

Sport is full of hopeful debutants who didn’t make the grade. Yet among this group we have four absolute titans of the Scottish game posing before the camera before they have kicked or passed a ball in anger for the national team.

On this day all six probably shared the same hopes and ambitions yet the experience of Campbell Lamerton and Duncan shows how random sport can be.Or rather the route more usually taken, certainly back in the amateur days when players came and went with alarming regularity, enjoying their day in the sun and then retreating to the shadows.

Campbell-Lamerton won just two more caps – against Romania and Zimbabwe at RWC1987 – before he faded from the scene while Duncan was gone just two years later despite a thoroughly respectable haul of seven tries in 18 games.

Then there are the age differences. Scott and Gavin Hastings always were on the fast track from schoolboy days with only the sheer success and quality of the 1984 side delaying, slightly, their introduction to the Test scene. Here Scott is 21 and Gavin 23 yet Calder is 28 and had been one of the best loose forwards in Scotland and indeed Britain for a long while. His twin brother Jim had just stood down from Test rugby!

The Scotland back row was not an easy unit to break into but when he did, Finlay made a huge impact and you wondered where Scotland had been hiding him for the last seven or eight years. Within three years he was leading the Lions to a series win.

Footnote. On the subject of captaincy, there is one more twist to the tale. Having skippered Scotland to a share of the title, Deans was in line to captain the Lions on their scheduled tour to South Africa in 1986. That didn’t happen… but he did captain the Lions against a World XV in Cardiff that April for which “caps” have been awarded. Three future Lions skippers in one image, the son of a Lions skipper and a future Scotland Grand Slam skipper. Can anybody find an image to top that?