How Rutherford’s men stormed Twickenham
Legendary Scotland fly-half inspired last win at the home of old rivals, writes Richard Bath
‘The main thing we had going for us in 1983 was naivety,” says John Rutherford, the man who cut England to shreds the last time Scotland won at Twickenham. “The first time I played down there, we drew, the next time we were leading only to mess up late on – that one was my fault – and the year before we drew with them at Murrayfield. England held no fear for us, there was no psychological barrier about playing at Twickenham – we went down there expecting to win and that’s what we did.”
Rutherford had already missed three Five Nations games with an Achilles tendon injury, including the previous round’s Murrayfield loss against Wales, and only played because it was his last chance to put his hand up for that summer’s Lions tour to New Zealand. Scotland were so impressive in victory at Twickenham that eight Scots went, although stars such as Keith Robertson, David Johnston and David Leslie – voted the Player of the 1984 Five Nations as Scotland won the Grand Slam – did not make the plane.
Scotland had made changes ahead of travelling to Twickenham, with feisty prop Jim Aitken relieving scrum-half Roy Laidlaw of the captaincy, Rutherford returning, and Scotland fielding a callow second row of gigantic debutant Tom Smith and backrower Iain Paxton.
“Although England were a bit low on confidence, in most other ways it was very much like Saturday’s match,” says Rutherford. “England were big and powerful up front, our forwards were more mobile and we had a set of backs who, apart from Jim Pollock from Gosforth, played together for the South and knew each other’s games inside out.”
A dull match briefly enlivened by the intervention of streakers (“Jim was halfway through this stirring call to arms, but he lost the audience” says Rutherford) worked out exactly as Scotland planned. It is a plan which has not changed much in the intervening 34 years. Scotland’s forwards, particularly a rambunctious back row of Jim Calder, Leslie and the rangy John Beattie, played at a high tempo, dragging English heavy artillery around the park and – as you would expect from a pack coached by Jim Telfer – creating carnage at the breakdown. Behind them, Laidlaw and Rutherford pulled the strings and the centre partnership of jinking Jim Renwick and the silky Robertson ran rings around England’s new but mismatched centre partnership of big Paul Dodge and wee Huw Davies.
“We were really confident, there was no inferiority complex,” says Paxton. “A lot of us wanted to put down a Lions marker but, unusually, before the game we were out at Weybridge and things were really calm, or as calm as they ever got with Jim Telfer. Tom and I were pretty inexperienced – I hadn’t played in the second row since school – but so were Steve Bainbridge and Stephen Boyle. The atmosphere was brilliant, it always was at the old Twickenham, and our forwards got around the park better than theirs. It helped that we had a Kiwi referee, Tom Doocey, who was sympathetic to the way we played at the breakdown. Although it was 9-9 at half-time, we were in control.”
If the first half was a kicking duel between Peter Dods and Dusty Hare, a classic scrum-half ’s sniping try for Laidlaw, a Robertson dropped goal and a bulldozing score for Smith settled the matter. “There was that traditional rivalry, but in many ways it was just another game, one that we fully expected to win,” said captain Aitken.
That theme of Scottish confidence is echoed by Robertson. “We were just a bunch of guys who were ready to have a right good go,” he said. “I played better that day than I ever had for Scotland, partly because I played alongside Jim Renwick, and no one is better at creating space.
“We should have had a penalty try in the first minute when Jim [Renwick] was tackled high as he was going to score, and from then on it was all Scotland. The coach wasn’t a big figure back then, so it was the players who made the decisions. The atmosphere was different, too: at the old Twickenham the crowd was at eye level, and so close I could hear individual friends from the Borders; for me, it was the best ground in the world.
“The official dinner afterwards was at the Hilton, but it’s the festivities later on that really stick in my mind. Jim Aitken arranged for a really good pianist to come to the Charing Cross Hotel, where we and lots of Scotland fans were staying, and we stayed up until two or three in the morning singing our hearts out. Who would have thought then that it would be at least 34 years before we got another chance to do that again?”