My Life in Rugby: David Officer – former Scotland A, harlequins, Edinburgh and Worcester centre

Randall Philip (Edin-burgh University) and Graham Hogg (Currie) were major influences in my early rugby career, but it was while playing under Graham, for Scotland A, that things really took off for me.
We had a good Six Nations ‘A’ Championship and I’d worked my way into the starting XV as Jim McLaren’s midfield partner by the time we played a very strong England side, including many of my future Harlequins team-mates, in the all-important final game at Inverleith. We put 40 points on them in a hard-fought but ultimately convincing win and I obviously impressed Andy Keast, who’d travelled north to scout a few players, because an offer to join Harlequins soon followed.
Having toured Australia in the summer of with Scotland, it wasn’t long before I was living the life of a full-time professional. By the end of that first season, my body was in bits. A fortnight away on honeymoon with my wife, Lindsay, was just what the doctor ordered. Suitably refreshed and by now attuned to the demands of professional rugby, I felt my second season at Quins went really well.
Scoring four tries in my last six Premiership games helped win me a place on the 2000 summer tour to New Zealand where, again, I sadly missed out on a cap. A lot of Test places had been sewn up by the time of my return to fitness from a six-week groin injury with a hat-trick against Poverty Bay.
It’s hard to believe now but there was a lot of uncertainty at Quins around the whole viability of professional rugby. So when the chance to join Edinburgh came up, I took it as a lot of my friends had spoken highly of the coach, Bob Easson.
In hindsight, I wish I’d stayed in London. Not long after I joined, Bob left Edinburgh and Frank Hadden took over and his game-plan didn’t really suit me.
So when Andy Keast got back in touch during my second season asking if I’d be interested in joining Worcester’s push to the Premiership I jumped at the opportunity. Despite missing three months with an Achilles injury I averaged a try a game from 16 appearances and scored three hat-tricks in my first season at Sixways.
Having missed out on promotion that year we managed to get over the line in 2003/04. It was great to have played a part in that, although, from a personal perspective, the season was pretty brutal with a torn hamstring and shoulder injury limiting my involvement.
In the end I decided to return to Scotland to focus on my career back in the property and construction industry with Thomas Adamson. I
hadn’t intended to play again and focused on building a new family home. It wasn’t long, though, before my old coach Graham Hogg and ex-playing colleague and now head coach at Currie, Ally Donaldson, asked if I could help the club out.
Currie were struggling at the wrong end of the Scottish Premiership but we pulled ourselves up to mid-table by the end of the season and reached the Cup Final only to lose to Watsonians. In my second season we won the League for the first time, which was great. I was persuaded to play on for one more season before I turned my hand to coaching, with Currie and then Boroughmuir.
My spare time now is devoted to driving my two sports-mad children, Hannah and Harry, up and down the country. Harry is a talented footballer with Lochend BC in Edinburgh and Hibernian FC U11s but if he ever decides to pick up the oval ball seriously (he plays at home with me) I think you might see me get out there coaching again, it’s something I’d definitely like to do.