Golfers, and especially bad golfers, love the idea of the eclectic score.
This is the aggregate system that allows you to compile a total not just from one round, but from your best individual hole scores over many rounds. So although you might struggle to break 100 most days of the week, when you add up all your flukes, lucky bounces and moments of outrageous good fortune, you can, in time, come up with a number that would have Rory McIlroy purring with envy.
Granted it might take you about 30 years to get into McIlroy territory, but the eclectic still offers that sweetly tantalising though that, if the stars and planets and lottery numbers all lined up correctly, you might shoot that round of 59 on a single outing at your local muni.
Which set me thinking. What would an eclectic Six Nations look like from a Scottish perspective? I've dragged myself around the Championship for a few decades now, so as another championship looms what Scotland games left the most vivid memories? This lot might do for starters:
ENGLAND
Murrayfield. 15 Feb 1986. Scotland 33 England 6.
No, not the Grand Slam game of four years later, but an exuberant, almost boisterous, slaying of the Auld Enemy. Scotland's points total and winning margin were - and still are - both records in the oldest international fixture of all, but the game lives in the memory more for Scotland's style of play, a ruinously merciless shredding of their opponents. John Rutherford, Roy Laidlaw and Colin Deans remained from the 1984 Grand Slam side, while a raft of new players who would lay the foundation of its repeat in 1990 were just finding their feet. Quite simply, Scotland's pace and fitness bamboozled the English defence. Matt Duncan, Scott Hastings and Rutherford scored tries and Gavin Hastings kicked 21 points. Probably the best single performance of Scotland's greatest era.
FRANCE
Parc des Princes. 18 February 1995. France 21 Scotland 23.
Another match that would come to be overshadowed by what happened in the same fixture four years on, but the outcome in 1995 was, in is own way, as remarkable as the rout of 1999. Nobody thought much of a Scotland side that had failed to win a single game the previous year, but they got a restorative victory over Ireland in their first championship outing and headed to Paris in more buoyant mood. They had not won in the French capital for 26 years, but they put together a feisty and hard-working performance and were level at 16-16 going into the closing stages. Then, though, a loose kick from Gregor Townsend set up a try for Jean-Luc Sadourny and the game seemed to be up. But Townsend redeemed himself brilliantly withthe famous 'Toony Flip' pass that sent Gavin Hastings through for a try. The conversion guaranteed the win and a night of magnificent celebrations.
ITALY
Stadio Flaminio. 5 February 2000. Italy 34 Scotland 20.
The Italians had battled for years to get into the championship and this was their first match in the newly expanded tournament. Nobody gave them a prayer. They seemed well past their best and they had shipped 101 points against New Zealand in their last match of 1999. On top of that, Scotland were the reigning champions and had a team that looked capable of cutting other sides to ribbons. But the Italians were determined to mark their moment in the sun and they played dogged, clever rugby. The old warhorse Massimo Giovanelli had a magnificent game and Diego Dominguez kicked a record 29 points. The Scottish fans, who had travelled in their thousands, cheered Italy to the rafters at the end. Has defeat ever tasted this sweet?
IRELAND
Murrayfield 4 March 1989. Scotland 37 Ireland 21.
"A match that will be savoured in memory and video tape for many a year," ran the Herald report two days later. Very prescient, too, for the whisper from Murrayfield recently suggests that this is one of the games Vern Cotter has studied in his desire to get back to a more characteristically Scottish style of game. You can understand why, as the legendary back-row trio of John Jeffrey, Fin Calder and Derek White may never have played better together. Ireland actually led by two points at the break, but the Scottish breakaways, kept on the front foot by the tyro half-backs Craig Chalmers and Gary Armstrong, dominated everything from that point on. They finished with five tries, three of them by Iwan Tukalo - the first hat-trick by a Scot for 63 years - and set the template for the Grand Slam 12 months later.
WALES
Millennium Stadium. 13 February 2010. Wales 31 Scotland 24.
This one really did have everything. Wales defence coach Shaun Edwards reckoned it was the most dramatic game he had ever witnessed and few would disagree after watching Scotland, emboldened by a newly confident Dan Parks, take the game to Wales right from the start. The Scots claimed tries through John Barclay and Max Evans to lead 15-3 after 20 minutes. They were still nine points ahead at the break, but tragedy had struck with Thom Evans suffering the neck injury that would end his career. In the second-half, Parks' kicks kept nudging Scotland forward, but Scotland lost two players to the sin bin late in the game and Wales scored 17 unanswered points in the space of 15 minute to clinch the win.
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