If I haven't been up to scratch she'll hit me with it on

"If I haven't been up to scratch she'll hit me with it on the chin. Coming from New Zealand, she knows the game well." Coming from Hawick, the Borders town as famed for its rugby as for its wool, so does Stanger.His headmaster at Hawick High School was a certain James William Telfer, now Scotland's head coach and director of rugby. But the coach who introduced him to rugby, at Wilton Primary School, is the man who will be behind the BBC television microphone at Murrayfield this afternoon. And if Tony Stanger repeats his try-scoring feat of eight years ago Bill McLaren will, once again, not be lost for a word or two.. 1980: Scotland 18 England 30 ENGLAND clinched their first Grand Slam since 1957 with the winger John Carleton scoring three tries.

The match was a fitting swan-song for the flankers Tony Neary (his 50th cap) and Roger Uttley, both of whom then retired. "It was the only international I played at Murrayfield after missing three visits through injury," said Uttley, who retains fond memories of a glorious afternoon for Bill Beaumont's team. "We were under pressure, but everyone was desperate for a decent showing after our previous outing against Wales, which was one of the worst games ever seen at Twickenham. We had a better pack than Scotland, but they had great backs. We started like a train and were running away with the game before getting a bit jaded. They came back at us but we kept scrapping and finished strongly. I tore a rib cartilage tackling Keith Robertson, and yet I thoroughly enjoyed myself throughout - it was a marvellous release after the tension of the earlier matches.

Then we got very pissed." 1986: Scotland 33 England 6A TRANSITIONAL England team made a promising start to the match only to find themselves on the receiving end as the rampant Scottish cut loose during a stunning second-half blitz. Nigel Melville, the England scrum-half that day, recalled what happened. "We were a new side coming together while they were much more experienced," he said. "It was a case of the old versus the new, but they still had a fabulous game. It seemed that every time Maurice Colclough got the ball, he dropped it and gave it away. Even though I was at scrum-half, I didn't see much of the ball because they seemed to ruck everything They would win quick ball and then run it.

Their forwards - especially John Jeffrey, Colin Deans and Iain Paxton - all played exceptionally well, but it was just one of those days when everything went right for them. Our consolation came two years later when we went back there and won. We played more through our forwards on that occasion, so we obviously learned a few lessons from that match."1990: Scotland 13 England 7AN HISTORIC Five Nations occasion - both sides had three wins going into the match, so the Grand Slam was at stake for each - was decided by a second-half try from Tony Stanger, who ran on to a Gavin Hastings through-kick. Scotland's captain David Sole famously led out the underdogs at a slow, purposeful march and Finlay Calder, the Scottish flanker, described the atmosphere as gladiatorial. "To be honest, we didn't play well in our earlier games whereas England had been exceptional," the former Lions captain remembered.

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