My Life in Rugby with Iwan Tukalo – the former Scotland & Selkirk wing talks about his journey in the game
IWAS privileged to play with a fantastic squad of players at what was largely a successful time for the Scotland team. Like any good team we weren't reliant on any one individual, there was always someone ready to step up and take the lead. Everyone knew their role in the team and mine, as a winger, was obviously to cross the whitewash at all costs and put points on the board. I managed to score 15 tries in 37 Tests but that's not to say I didn't make an arse of things many, many times!
Funnily enough, in the Ireland game in 1989 when I scored a hattrick, people say to me that must be a great memory. But, you know what, the thing that sticks in the back of my mind is butchering a three-on-one, on the halfway line, towards the end of the first half. All I had to do was draw the full-back and give the pass, but I went myself and the chance went begging. Afterwards, I thought ‘you clown'. Sean (Lineen) and Scott (Hastings) never said anything to me but I knew fine well that they weren't happy, and rightly so. Ironically, I only got moved to the wing by the coach of Royal High, my old school's former pupils' team, because he thought I was too much of a greedy bugger to play scrum-half !
That win over Ireland was one of five wins in six matches against them, the only defeat coming in my debut in 1985. I'll say it once and I'll say it again, if it wasn't for John Rutherford I don't think I'd have got capped at all. It was John who encouraged me to go to Selkirk after Royal High FP had been relegated straight back down from the First Division having won promotion the year before. John was Mr Scotland Rugby at the time, the main man, and it was a no-brainer to join a club where there were players of his calibre and Iain Paxton's. John could see the things I needed to work on and at the end of each training session he'd spend half an hour with me working on my box kicking and other areas that needed improvement.
There is always something when you look back at matches that you think you could have done better but, in my mind, the match I made fewest mistakes in was the 21-0 win against France in 1990, the year we won the Grand Slam. I did everything that was asked of me and apart from a couple of missed tackles, it was as close as I'd ever get to a flawless performance. One big moment was the kick ahead that led to Sean's try. Geech (Ian McGeechan) was very calculated in his tactical approach and he'd highlighted how France could be exposed in the back field when they attacked on turnover ball. Serge Blanco lost the ball in contact, two passes and it was out to me, and I had Geech's voice screaming in my head to put it long. Peyo Hontas was my opposite winger so I put the ball behind him and chased up, tackled him along with the ball, and it spilled out and Finlay (Calder) kicked it on and Sean managed to touch it down.
In terms of the Grand Slam match against England, a couple of things really resonate with me. I remember vividly the way the coaches kept us away from all the media hype. We were warned off talking to the press to make sure we didn't give England any ammunition, while all the time they talked them up. The second thing was on the day of the game itself. I was sharing a room with David Sole at the Braid Hills Hotel in Edinburgh and Soley didn't say much at the best of times but was quieter than ever. You could hear a pin drop and that was making me more and more nervous. So I asked him if he minded me putting on the TV, as a distraction, while we started to pack our bags, The credits for Grandstand started and the programme opened up with a montage of great Scotland-England sporting encounters. We stopped what we were doing and looked at each other and went “oh my god!”. It suddenly dawned on us how big a deal it all was.
When we went down to the team room, there was a Scotland jersey placed on each of the chairs, one for each player. The number wasn't showing, just the thistle. Creamy (Jim Telfer) told us to sing Flower of Scotland and after we'd done that, he told us to pick up a jersey and present it to the relevant player. I got No.6, JJ's (John Jeffrey), and as I gave it to him, I said, ‘I won't let you down, I'll be there'. When we all walked out of that room, we knew that each and every one of us was not going to leave anything out on that park. In our mind, it was our day, come hell or high water. I'm getting emotional thinking about it now.
Before kick-off, we went out on the pitch in our blazers as normal to see what the conditions were like and we could see, over in the far corner, the girlfriends and wives of the England team being interviewed on TV. That was another thing that fuelled us because, in our mind, they hadn't earned the right to set foot on the sacred turf of Murrayfield. When it was time for the slow march out of the tunnel, I was the last in line as always; it was a superstition of mine. So by the time I made it onto the pitch the noise was just incredible. I'd played at Murrayfield a number of times before but I had never heard anything like that before. The crowd never let up throughout the 80 minutes, every yard of ground we made they were behind us. A combination of that, everyone giving 120% and England getting transfixed on trying to do stuff they wouldn't normally do, helped us to get us the win.
I'm just glad it was Tony Stanger who got the chance down his wing because I'd have never been able to reach up that high and grab the ball, the short arse that I am!
There was also a moment in that match that reminded me how the understanding between you and your teammates grew with time together on the pitch. In my debut match against Ireland, my opposite number, Trevor Ringland scored twice, and I was at fault for one of the tries. I rushed up thinking I could take the centre man and ball but Paul Dean, the out half, saw me coming and floated the ball over the top of our heads to give Ringland an easy run in. Afterwards, Geech asked me what had happened and as I explained I'd made a bad error of judgement, Scott Hastings jumped in and said it was on him for not communicating that he had the centre covered. So, in 1990, when the stakes were at their highest, I didn't make the same mistake again when Rory Underwood popped up on his opposite wing. Instead, I instinctively knew Scott had him covered and, as a result, I stayed out wide and was able to usher Simon Halliday safely into touch. That was one of the few tackles I did make. People joke that was why my white shorts always looked in pristine condition! The biggest disappointment of my career was that we couldn't back it up against England the following year in the World Cup semi-final. To be a hair's breadth away from potentially competing in a World Cup final, was a sore one to take at the time. England had learned their lessons from 1990 and kept things a lot tighter. During Covid, they showed the 1990 Grand Slam game and the game against Ireland where I scored a hat-trick on TV, and I was watching thinking, ‘blimin' heck, that was really quick ball'. The ball the forwards put on was like manna from heaven for a wing but in that '91 semi-final I think I probably touched the ball twice; it was a real war of attrition.
Overall, I can't have complaints. I played for my country and had 12 great seasons at Selkirk as well as playing for the South of Scotland. One of the best things about rugby is the friends you make for life and I regularly get to meet up with some of my former team-mates. In the summer, in my role supporting the charity Breaking the Chains, a few of the guys went to Ukraine, where my father was from, including three other former Scottish internationalists in Finlay Calder, Colin Deans and Gordon Hunter, delivering aid to the frontline. It was very emotional as I met my aunt and cousins for the first time, and being there and seeing what I saw really brought home the reality and futility of war.
