Never a dull moment - six of the most memorable Wales v Scotland encounters in Cardiff
1923: Wales 8 Scotland 11
Known as Gracie’s match on account of the brilliant individual performance of Scotland centre and captain A L ‘Bill’ Gracie who scored two minutes from the time to clinch Scotland’s first win in Cardiff since 1890, dummying his way through Arthur Johnson and Codger Johnson and stepping past full-back Ossie Male.
As he made the touchdown, Gracie slid into the crowd and hit a young Scottish supporter full on and reportedly knocked a couple of the fan’s teeth out. All of this was played out in front of a then record crowd of 40,000 who paid £5,800 to watch proceedings, another record of its day. After the match the Welsh players helped chair Gracie off. I doubt that will happen if Stuart Hogg produces a match winner on Saturday. Another try scorer that day in an extremely quick Scotland backline was Eric Liddell, who had played schoolboy rugby with Gracie at Eltham College and a year later won the Olympic 440 yard title in Paris in a world record 47.8 secs and took a bronze in the 220 yards.
1972: Wales 35 Scotland 12
A match immortalised by Gareth Edwards’ 80-yard dash for what was probably his finest individual try in Test rugby and certainly the muddiest. It started with Mervyn Davies pilfering a Scotland lineout ball on the Wales 25 and feeding to Edwards who took a speculative look around the blindside before exploding out of the blocks and dismissing Roger Arneil with a mighty hand off.
As he sprinted up the right touchline the defence was converging, notably Jim Renwick and replacement wing Steen Turk. Determined to at least make as much yardage as possible Edwards then kicked for the right hand corner and hit the after-burners again. A former British schools 220 yard hurdle champion who beat hurdling great Alan Pascoe to the title, Edwards was a supreme athlete but Renwick surely had the angle on him. With one last massive effort Edwards launched himself at the ball as it stuck in the mud in goal and touched down with such force that he completed an involuntary forward roll. Getting up he looked like a miner clocking off so caked in grime was his face. All that was missing was a miner’s lamp.
1982: Wales 18 Scotland 34
Scotland had endured a patchy Five Nations in 1982 until this spectacular win when they outscored a shellshocked Wales five tries to one with their first score, from Jim Calder, a contender for one of the greatest ever Scotland international tries.
Wales were on the attack through Gareth Davies who chipped dangerously into their 22 but the move was read by left wing Roger Baird who collected the ball at full tilt and tiptoed his way up the left touchline at pace. Meanwhile three members of his pack were giving gallant chase with athletic No.8 Ian Paxton latching onto Baird’s inside pass and pinning back his ears from the halfway line. Clive Rees caught him with five yards to go, bringing Paxton down in a tackle that unfortunately saw the big man suffer a serious knee injury. He did, however, get his pass away to giant lock Alan Tomes and then Tomes passed on to Calder who smashed through Ray Gravell’s despairing tackle to score. Further Scotland tries came from Renwick, David Johnston, Derrick White and debutant Jim Pollock as Scotland swept to their first win in Wales for 20 years.
1986 Wales 22 Scotland 15
Wales were leading 16-15 midway through the second half but struggling against a very lively Scotland side that outscored them three tries to one when they were awarded a penalty on their own ten yard line and quite wide out to the left.
Paul Thorburn, who had already landed a first half penalty from halfway into the strong wind trotted up and told skipper David Pickering he fancied a shot. Even if he didn’t have the legs it would pin Scotland back in their 22. From the camera behind Thorburn is looks like the kick is just factionally missing to the left of the posts but the ball veers to the right – a gust of wind? – at the final moment and makes it home with three or four yards to spare.
The South Wales Echo measured the kick on the Sunday morning at 70 yards 81/2 inches, with the angle, and that remains to this day the longest place kick in Test history. Nobody has really got close and increasingly few even try. The kick into the corner seems the default setting when penalties are awarded between 60-70 yard range. 2002: Wales 22 Scotland 27 Notable mainly for two things, the first and, thus far, only Scotland win at the Millennium Stadium in ten attempts and, second, it was achieved in the last game that Bill McLaren commentated on as he sailed off into retirement at the age of 78.
McLaren had commentated on Test rugby since 1953 when he made his debut on BBC Radio and on TV since 1959. Before the game the 74,000 crowd sang For He’s a
Jolly Good Fellow and answered a call for three cheers. In the match hooker Gordon Bulloch scored two tries but Scotland were trailing 22-21 with 90 seconds of normal time left following a fifth penalty from Stephen Jones whose kicking had kept Wales in the game. From the kick-off Scotland went up field and attacked in numbers, forcing a penalty in the first minute of added time which Brendan Laney kicked, his fourth successful penalty of the day. Scotland then attacked one last time to with yet another penalty and Duncan Hodge stepped up this time to make McLaren’s day.
2014: Wales 51 Scotland 3
Stuart Hogg, player of the tournament in 2016 and 2017, has enjoyed many fine days in the Six Nations but this wasn’t one of them. Trailing 10-3 in the 22nd minute Hogg hit Dan Biggar with a horrible late and high shoulder barge after the Wales fly-half hoisted a high ball following a poor kick downfield by Hogg himself.
Originally the Scotland full-back got a yellow card for his troubles from referee Jerome Garces but the incident was replayed on the big screen and Garces upgraded the card to red as Hogg walked off. Hogg subsequently received a three-match ban after pleading guilty. He became the third Scotland player sent off in an international behind Scott Murray and Nathan Hines.
Wales were already in the groove before Hogg’s moment of madness but poured on the pain, scoring seven tries in total to record their biggest ever win in the fixture. It is also Scotland’s highest ever defeat in the Six Nations.