You lived on the edge with Scotland

WHENEVER I cross paths with Paul Ackford, he always shouts across the room, “he taught me everything I knew!” Both of us were called into the England squad on the back of the London division’s famous win over Australia in 1988 but he got into the Test team later that year, and I didn’t.

- NEIL EDWARDS

They put him to the front of the lineout for his first cap against the Wallabies and, as he had never played at the front of the lineout before, we had this training session at The Stoop where I went through all the positions you had to get into to stop the opposition getting the ball. Paul and I had played together for a number of years, for Surrey as well as London, and I knew that Test rugby was the level he deserved to be at and also, as a friend of mine, I was only too happy to help. As we all know, he flourished once he finally got the opportunity at the ripe old age of 30 and turned into one of England’s greats.

I, on the other hand, ended up winning six caps for Scotland. As someone who had grown up in Wimbledon, I never expected that to be my route into Test rugby but I am extremely proud that I got to represent the land of my grandfather, George Watt, who came from Dundee.

My first cap was at Murrayfield in the 1992 Calcutta Cup match. At that stage, Scotland punched above their weight, they’d been down to New Zealand and almost beat the All Blacks, nearly made it to the final of the 1991 World Cup, and were a pretty good unit still. It was good fun being involved back in the day under the coaching of “Creamy” (Jim Telfer) Ian McGeechan and Richie Dixon. Creamy would think nothing of live rucking on a Sunday morning after a game or sending you on a three-mile run on the morning of the match. I remember being selected to be the player that lay down on the ground, where a tackle shield would normally be, while the rest of the forwards rucked over me. I could see the delight in the faces of my team-mates who thought it was great fun to give a Harlequins player a pasting on a cold and grey Sunday morning in Edinburgh.