THE SCOTSMAN REPORTS

DUNCAN SMITH


JIM Telfer has revealed why he changed his mind and finally agreed to write his autobiography. One of the most towering figures in the history of Scottish rugby launched his book Looking Back... For Once at Murrayfield yesterday after previously indicating he would be reluctant to undertake such a project.

The former Scotland player, captain, coach and director of rugby said the spur to document his memoirs, in particular his five decades at the forefront of domestic and international rugby, was threefold. "My wife and former secretary both told me I've been used to working under pressure for such a long time that if I didn't put my mind towards doing something useful I'd regret it," he explained.


"So that put the kernel of the idea in my mind. I also wanted to highlight the fact that I had a playing career that took me all over the world. I had 17 seasons as a player for Melrose, Scotland and the Lions and not too many people know much about that now. Most think of me as the director of rugby, nothing else.

"Thirdly, I wanted to, not put the record straight so much as put my side of the story down in print. I wanted a chance to explain the reasons I and others took the decisions we did about the way Scotland approached professionalism."

Key chapters of the autobiography, which was written with The Scotsman's chief rugby writer David Ferguson and was recently serialised in this newspaper, concern Telfer's recollections of the seminal moments in which he was a driving force, like the 1984 and 1990 Grand Slams, the 1999 Five Nations title and his experiences coaching the Lions in 1983, 1989 and 1997. The book also allows Telfer to give his own account of the bitterly acrimonious birth of professionalism in Scotland.

The former teacher became a full-time employee of the SRU in 1993 and would remain at Murrayfield for the next tumultuous ten years. Less than two years after he became the union's first director of rugby, the sport turned professional and he was charged with navigating the Scottish game through waters it was perilously unprepared for. He was and remains a passionate advocate of the district system, but going down this route led to a series of confrontations with the clubs and traditionalists who viewed radical change as an unequivocal threat to the game's fabric. Telfer insists his approach has now been vindicated and that professional rugby is finally heading in the right direction.

"I actually don't regret any of the decisions I've taken," he said. "I think we've now reached the stage where we have an established three-tier system - an international tier, a fully professional one and then a community of clubs underneath - which I always wanted. In that respect I firmly believe we got it right.

"Where I got it wrong I think was that I ram-rodded things through and gave the impression that only my view was the right view. I regret that I failed to persuade some people. Although, I must admit that's because some of them just didn't want to be persuaded and had closed minds. But I may have been a bit dogmatic myself and I'm not the most diplomatic person. I just thought that when we went professional everyone would want Scotland to win and I couldn't understand that people didn't view Scotland as the most important team in the country."

The title of the book refers to Telfer's tendency after successes and setbacks alike to look to the future. After a difficult few years at the end of his career in which the game was affected by a seemingly unbreakable malaise and plagued by in-fighting, he now feels that there are grounds to look ahead with optimism. With a new regime in charge at Murrayfield, Frank Hadden replacing Matt Williams as national coach and a sharp improvement in the performances of the pro teams, Telfer believes things are finally moving in the right direction.

"We were looking over a precipice at the egm in January and we decided not to fall over," he said. "The three-tier system is now established and there now seems to be a willingness in all quarters to get behind it. The pro teams have stepped up their game, they have more strength in depth and the under-age development is starting to bear fruit with quality young players coming through like Kelly Brown and Chris Cusiter at the Borders and Rob Dewey at Edinburgh. I also think the pro players now have confidence to go to the likes of Wales and Ireland and win, which can only be good for the international set-up."

All great coaches will tell you that while an enjoyable second choice, it remains a poor substitute to actually playing the game, and Telfer is no different. He reckons one of the most rewarding parts of the book was going back and recalling his days on the pitch. The 1966 Lions tour to New Zealand, in which a Telfer at his peak played in 23 matches, is singled out as the most memorable period. Although that Test series ended in a 4-0 whitewash, he relished the experience and what he encountered and learned on that trip would go on to underpin and inform his rugby philosophy in subsequent decades. But it is individual matches played in a dark blue jersey rather than a red one that burn most vividly. A win over England in his debut season of 1964 -the first over the auld enemy for ten years, Telfer scoring one try and setting up the other two - is one highlight. His famous role in the 1969 victory in France is another. For the next 26 years, until Gregor Townsend and Gavin Hastings combined to lay the Paris bogey to rest in dramatic fashion in 1995, the grainy pictures of Telfer's winning try were routinely trotted out every two years.

It became an iconic moment but, typical of the no-nonsense honesty which is one of his defining characteristics, Telfer takes this opportunity to demystify one of his most celebrated contributions to Scotland. "That was one of the biggest pieces of daylight robbery I've ever seen," he recalls matter-of-factly. "France were so superior to us that day. It's become accepted that my try was in the dying moments, and I thought that too, but going back and watching the video it was actually quite early on. We had to hang on for about another 60 minutes and how we did I'll never know!"

This article was posted on 13-Oct-2005, 08:36 by Hugh Barrow.