McLauchlan reflects on his time with late great Carmichael . . .
IAN McLAUCHLAN, the great Scotland and Lions loose-head prop of the late 1970s, tells a story about playing against France with his old friend and front-row comrade Sandy Carmichael, who passed away on Wednesday, aged 77, after a period of illness.
“The French were always trying to bully you, so we tried to give as good as we got – but that didn’t always work,” he recounts.
“We played them at the Parc des Princes in 1975, and at the first line-out all hell broke loose. Everyone was in, giving it plenty, except Sandy standing at the front, who had never flung a punch in his life, and Victor Boffelli at the back, who isn’t a fighter either.
“Eventually the referee gets control back and he pulls Sandy and Boffelli aside, tells them if there is any more of that then they will be sent off, and then writes their numbers down.
“Sandy was pretty upset because in those days you just didn’t get sent off in internationals, so he says to me: ‘That’s it. I can’t do my share of the fighting now.”
“I thought, thank God for that. He would probably have hit me. Sandy just wasn’t interested in punching. He didn’t know how to do it and he didn’t want to do it. It is against his nature.”
Carmichael – who played 50 times for Scotland in total between 1967 and 1978 – might not have been a fighter, but he was certainly no wimp. In fact, McLauchlan has rated his old team-mate as “the bravest guy I know”.
“Sandy was a gentle giant and a really, really good rugby player,” said McLauchlan, in a tribute published by the Scottish Rugby Union yesterday morning.
“He was obviously one of the all-time greats as far as Scotland is concerned but vastly popular throughout the rugby world.
“He was an amazing tourist. Nothing put him up nor down. He would never get up in the morning and be grumpy. You always found him the same
– just Sandy. He was hugely motivated to work in any situation and with any team he played for. It’s a great loss.”
Jim Renwick played behind Carmichael in the Scottish backline 22 times in the mid-1970s, and against him in some epic club matches between Hawick and West of Scotland during that period.
“Sandy, McLauchlan and Gordon Brown were the senior pros when I first came into the Scotland side,” he recalls. “McLauchlan and Brown would have all the stories about the Lions tours, and Sandy would sit there and listen in but keep himself to himself a bit more. Sometimes he’d get the buttend of some of the patter, but it was always well natured because they were all pals, and he was hugely respected.
“As a player he was a tough guy, but also quick for a prop. I thought he was really good at tackling outside-backs and back-rows in the wider channels, so he wasn’t one of those old-fashioned props who trundled from scrum to lineout but didn’t do much else.
“It could be pretty brutal at times back then, but Sandy just soaked it up and got on with his job. Some people might have called him soft for not retaliating – or not getting his retaliation in first – but they clearly didn’t know Sandy.
“He was a hard guy who wouldn’t take step backwards.
“He was also a big part of the West of Scotland team who really gave Hawick a hard
time after the national leagues started in 1974. We had it our own way against most teams we came up against at the time, but we struggled against their big pack, and I remember him playing really well against us at No8 on one occasion.
“He was just a good player, as you have to be to tour with the Lions twice in 1971 and 1974. He also played in that Barbarians game against the All Blacks at Cardiff Arms Park in 1973, when Gareth Edwards’ scored that famous try, so he was involved in some big-time rugby in his day.”
Colin Mair – who played and coached alongside Carmichael at West of Scotland – recalls an episode which gave an insight into how the prop was regarded internationally.
“I remember one time we went over to Ballymena for a match where we met Willie John McBride and Syd Millar, and the awesome respect these guys had for each other was fantastic,” he recounts. “Big bear hugs. You just knew those guys were cut from the same granite and had lived through all sorts of experiences together. They were in a world none of the rest of us would ever inhabit.”
“When he walked into a room, he had this presence, partly because he was a big man, but he also instinctively knew how to hold people’s attention. He was a great rugby man, as renowned on the world stage as he was with us mere mortals in the club game.”