Iain Laughland

Not to be confused with Ian McLauchlan.

Ian Hugh Page Laughland (born 29 October 1935 in Bombay[1]) was a Scottish rugby player, who played for Scotland and London Scottish FC and, before that, Merchiston Castle School. He was a fly half, and took over from Gordon Waddell.[2] He was capped 31 times between 1959-1967.[1]

Laughland captained London Scottish for five successive years and won the Middlesex Sevens tournament each year of his captaincy. He was noted as the architect of the game, changing the play by slowing down to a walking pace, his team showing excellent ball skills and patience before bursting through defences with agility and speed.

Captain of Scotland for the last two years of his playing career, and winning the Calcutta cup on two occasions at both Twickenham in 1963 and Murrayfiled in 1965.

His business career saw him heading up Benn Brothers Publications, an international magazine publisher. The company was sold to Excel PLC in 1999 by the remaining Benn family, who had left the helm many years prior.

Laughland continued his support of Rugby Union from the side of the pitch, running the Anglo Scottish side and culminating in becoming President of the Scottish Rugby Union (SRU) in 2003.

A long standing member of Rye Golf Club, Sussex, he has played to a 3 handicap . Other sporting achievements include captaining Scotland School boys at Cricket (1953) and playing for Nairn County Football Club whilst stationed n with the Sea Forth Highlanders. He served his national service from 1956 to 1958 stationed at Nairn and in active service in Aden during the Suez Crisis in 1957 as a 2nd lieutenant.


McLaren says of a game against South Africa in 1960

The Scottish try was a typical opportunist effort by Scotland's captain Arthur Smith. Iain Laughland (London Scottish) operating at stand-off, tried a drop-goal after John Douglas (Stewarts College F.P.), Norman Bruce (London Scottish) and Hugh McLeod (Hawick) had rolled out of the back of a line-out. The ball sliced off Laughland's foot, but Arthur Smith, purring as always like a high powered Rolls Royce, screamed up the wing like a shell and got the touch before the ball rolled out of play... The match was marked by some magnificent Scottish tackling in which the mid-field of Laughland, Eddie McKeating (Heriots F.P.), and George Stevenson (Hawick) set a superb example, that deprived a South African threequarter line comprising Janie Engelbrecht, Ian Kirkpatrick, John Gainsford and Hennie van Zyl of a try; some feat considering that those four contributed 38 tries during the tour.[3]

Mclaren also paid Laughland the accolade of selecting him as his fly Half for the all time greatest Scottish side which from all whom played between 1950 and 2003

References

Footnotes

  1. 1 2 player profile on scrum.com. Retrieved 16 February 2010
  2. ↑ Massie, p158
  3. ↑ McLaren, p141


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