Fife farmer who denied the All Blacks joins Hall of Fame

The prop, who was one of 13 new inductees to the Scottish Rugby Hall of Fame on Thursday night, made his debut in a 3-3 draw against England at Twickenham in 1959.

As the scoreline suggests, it was a keenly fought contest, the evidence of which is still writ large on Rollo’s face. He calls it “the legacy” of his international bow.

“In the second half of the game I got a knock on my face and discovered I'd got a broken nose so I had to go off to get the blood to stop running,” he said. “There were no reserves in those days, so once the blood had been stopped I went back on the field and that was me. And my nose is still squint now!”

The slightly off-kilter conk adds character to the face of one Scotland’s oldest ex-internationalists who is still a regular attendee at matches. At 91, Rollo remains an active supporter of rugby in general and Howe of Fife in particular. He was the first player to be capped out of the Cupar club and the lineage continues to the present day, with current scrum-half George Horne and his elder brother, Scotland assistant coach Pete Horne, both having also come through at Howe.

A new cohort of legends

Rollo is one the senior statesmen among a new cohort of legends joining the Hall of Fame. The others are men’s greats David Sole, Scott Hastings, Roy Laidlaw, Rob Wainwright, Mike Blair and the late Bill Maclagan; Scotland women’s top try-scorer Lucy Millard and their first ever try-scorer Sandra Colamartino; coaching trailblazers Rob Moffat and Richie Dixon and refereeing pioneers Jim Fleming and Hollie Davidson.

It’s elite company for Rollo who was a little late to rugby but soon made up for lost time.

“I played a lot of football,” he explained. “And my late brother, he played a lot of football in his day for the junior club in Wormit, so it was in the family. My father's side were all curlers and I did a bit of curling too at the Lake of Menteith, so I did different sports.”

A Lion in South Africa

In fact, the Fife farmer was 20 before he began playing rugby but whatever he may have missed out on in his youth, he more than made up for over the next two decades. He served Scotland with distinction, toured with the Lions in South Africa in 1962 and played on for Howe until he was 40.

Rollo was a mainstay in dark blue for almost a decade and missed only two games for Scotland in a remarkable run from 1959 to 1968. His 40th and last appearance for the national side, against Ireland as a 34-year-old, equalled the then Scottish cap record held by fellow prop Hugh McLeod.

“I don't know how I managed that at all,” said the modest Rollo. “The selectors must have been quite good to me.”

Rollo can also lay claim to membership of that elite group of Scotland players who have faced New Zealand and denied them a victory. The redoubtable prop came up against the All Blacks at Murrayfield in 1964 in a game which finished 0-0 but was anything but a pointless exercise for the Scots who could justifiably claim to be moral victors.

The result denied New Zealand a tour grand slam, with the All Blacks having already beaten Ireland, Wales and England. Reports say that the home crowd were so impressed by their team’s efforts that they demanded their return to the pitch. “We want Scotland” was the chant but the players were too exhausted to leave the changing room and take the acclaim.

“That was a big occasion, playing against the All Blacks,” acknowledged Rollo as he reeled off the names of those Scotland players who denied the tourists, including the likes of Jim Telfer, Ian Laughland and Peter Brown. “We had a good team at that time, we could take on anybody just about. Aye, it was a pretty tough fight, right enough.”

Scotland will renew their rivalry with New Zealand a week on Saturday and Rollo will be at Murrayfield to witness this latest attempt to beat the All Blacks for the first time.

No-one will be happier than this son of the soil if the current crop can go one better than the side of ’64.