A small town club in Scotland celebrates their three Nines.
Roy Laidlaw, Gary Armstrong and Greig Laidlaw, three Scrum-Halves and all three from the small border town of Jedburgh, Scotland, all three played for Scotland and British Lions, all three won the Calcutta Cup for Scotland. Jed-Forest Rugby Club realised how unique this is and decided to celebrate the fact, and we were invited!
We have a long rugby relationship with JedForest, starting with them taking part in the Amsterdam Sevens and visiting Hilversum. As a coach I visited them with several teams and made friends with Jim and family. So when Jim contacted us with an invitation for this Three Nines event we did not take long to decide to go.
It got even more exciting when the news came out that they would bring their “tens” being John Rutherford, Jonny Wilkinson and Finn Russell.
The event was popular with a 700+ turnout and big marquee on the pitch, speeches, raffle, auction and all. Most special was the interview with these amazing players. Good to learn how powerful the 9-10 partnership can be. Roy and John still play golf together once a week, Jonny holds Gary responsible for kicking off his career when starting at Newcastle Falcons and how Greig’s play allows Finn to be his flamboyant self.
Of course Wilko summed this 9-10 relationship up nicely when picking Gary Armstrong as his 9 in his non English World Cup Dream Team:
“The sheer aggression and resilience of the guy, his sheer character meant that anything, any ball that wasn’t good enough to go out to the number 10 was never to to the number 10. He would deal with everything himself and meant control of the game”.
It was an opportunity to get the Toulon “10 – Legend” T-Shirt signed, I framed it and it looks great.
Do we coaches still work on these combinations? 9-10 or 8-9-10? 2 throwing to 4 & 5? Let’s investigate!
Is it unique?
If you know of any other single club that had three players played for their club, capped for their country, captained their country and played for the British Lions AND all played on the same position (so do not tell me Barrett)? Please let me know, because Jed-Forest would love to share this with that club.
Interview
Nice interview with the players:
THREE 9s – THE INTERVIEWS – 2.8.19 from StuMedia on Vimeo.
(with permission of StuMedia)
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