Former Scotland and Lions prop Ian McLauchlan dies aged 83
Former Scotland and British and Irish Lions prop Ian McLauchlan has died at the age of 83.
Ayrshire-born McLauchlan, who was known throughout the rugby world as 'Mighty Mouse', won 43 caps for Scotland between 1969 and 1979, captaining the side 19 times.
McLauchlan's legacy was cemented on the victorious Lions tours of New Zealand and South Africa in 1971 and 1974, being one of only five players to feature in all eight Test matches.
His only Test try against New Zealand in June 1971, when he charged down an attempted All Blacks clearance to touch down in a 9-3 win, has passed into Lions folklore.
Weighing 14st 6lbs when he won his first cap, McLauchlan was regularly able to burrow under heavier tight-head props and give his team a set-piece advantage at a time when scrums were much more prevalent in the game.
Former Scotland and Lions teammate Andy Irvine told scottishrugby.org 'He was some character and some player.
'He was smaller than most props he came up against but I never saw anyone get the better of him.
'He was so tough, almost indestructible. What a fantastic career he had for Scotland and the Lions. It's very, very sad.'
After his playing career McLauchlan, who had been a teacher in Edinburgh, spent a brief spell in rugby journalism before setting up his own marketing company.
He served as a member of the Scottish Rugby Board from 2010 to 2019 and was president of the Scottish Rugby Union between 2010 and 2012.
McLauchlan was also a director of European Professional Club Rugby and played a key role in the transition from the previous competitions overseen by ERC.
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Scotsman
an hour ago
- Scotsman
Ian McLauchlan: The Mighty Mouse of Scottish rugby with a 'heart bigger than his body'
Former Scotland and Lions great dies aged 83 Sign up to our Rugby Union newsletter – Regular news stories and round-ups from around Scotland direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Ian McLauchlan, who has died aged 83, was one of the hardest men and most inspiring leaders ever to play rugby for Scotland. He captained his country 19 times in his 43 appearances, but whether officially skipper or not, he was always in the front line – literally, as a loosehead prop, but also metaphorically, as a competitor who never took a backward step. At around 5ft 8in, he was on the small side even then for a front-row forward, and gave away a lot in weight to some opponents. But he never gave an inch in the scrum or in the loose, and, as a result, he earned the nickname Mighty Mouse after a popular cartoon character of the time. In other words, his standing in the game was in inverse proportion to his stature. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Born in 1942, he knew nothing of rugby during his early childhood in the Ayrshire village of Tarbolton, where, as he wrote much later in Mighty Mouse, his autobiography, 'sport meant football, racing pigeons, whippets, pitch-and-toss and more football'. But once he took up the sport, at Ayr Academy aged 11, that was it. Scottish prop forward Ian McLauchlan of the British Lions peparing for their summer tour of Australia in May, 1971, at the revolutionary pre-tour training camp at Eastbourne. (Photo by Reg Speller/Fox Photos/) | Getty Images 'I was hooked straight away,' he continued. 'I loved the physicality, the brutality and the camaraderie of it. Before long the game had become the be-all and end-all of my life.' Although to the naked eye McLauchlan might not have cut a particularly imposing figure as he ambled across the pitch, in his lack of height and sheer indomitability he was the perfect choice to captain a small nation such as Scotland which often had to battle against apparently overwhelming odds. With the benefit of hindsight, then, it is odd that it took the national selectors so long to give him his debut. He was almost 27 and playing for Jordanhill when the invitation came to join the Scotland squad. 'The fact that I had to wait so long before winning my first cap against England in 1969 made the achievement all the more satisfying,' he wrote. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'Much of that day is a haze, but I remember sitting in the changing room at 2.50pm. 'Open the doors', I thought. 'Let me get out there and at them'. I had waited all my life for that moment.' Ian McLauchlan pictured at Murrayfield Stadium in 2017. | SNS Group / SRU If that phrase 'let me at them' hints at an almost sadistic eagerness to dominate his opponents, at times he could also display a kind of masochistic glee as he played through the pain barrier. That attitude was most evident during the 1973 Five Nations Championship, when, playing just his second match as captain, McLauchlan had to leave the field early against Ireland with a suspected broken leg. He seemed certain to miss the Triple Crown decider against England just three weeks later, but some semantic quibbling saw him retain his place. 'It turned out my leg wasn't broken,' he said. 'Although the bone was cracked.' At the time Scotland's players and supporters alike may have been glad to see McLauchlan take to the field at Twickenham, and he showed extraordinary courage to do so. But in retrospect, his decision to soldier on was perhaps too risky. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad As Andy Irvine, a Scotland and British & Irish Lions team-mate and also a former SRU president, wrote later: 'They said that it was a cracked fibula – but no matter how you dress it up it was a broken leg, and who can play rugby with a broken leg? 'I suppose it's a testament to the kind of guy he was – how hard he was – that he was able to make it through the match at all, and I can't even begin to imagine the pain he was in when he was scrummaging.' Ian McLauchlan in action for Scotland against New Zealand at Murrayfield in 1978. | SNS Group 0141 221 3602 Speaking on the SRU website yesterday after the news broke of his former team-mate's death on Friday, Irvine said: 'He was some character and some player. He was smaller than most props he came up against, but I never saw anyone get the better of him. 'He was so tough, almost indestructible. What a fantastic career he had for Scotland, and the Lions. It's very, very sad.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Off the field, McLauchlan was blessed with a wry sense of humour, but there was no doubt that his on-field ferocity could strike fear into the opposition - and maybe into some spectators too. As his late team-mate Gordon Brown once quipped: 'I always had a picture of McLauchlan on my mantelpiece to keep my kids back from the fire.'
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
THE MOUSE WHO ROARED! McLauchlan shone from Tarbolton to Dunedin... and back again
There was an added sense of poignancy that news of Ian 'Mighty Mouse' McLauchlan's sad passing should arrive just as the latest batch of British and Irish Lions were jetting off on this summer's adventure to Australia. McLauchlan, who died on Friday aged 83, was considered one of the toughest and feistiest players to ever pull on a Scotland jersey, something he did 43 times between 1969 and 1979. It was his performances for the Lions, however, that elevated the Ayrshire-born prop's reputation and brought him to wider recognition, something he did with distinction over two tours of duty. The first came in 1971 when a group that included Welsh great JPR Williams and Irish icon Willie John McBride won two games out of four and drew the final one to secure what remains the Lions' only series victory in New Zealand. McLauchlan played a pivotal role in the first Test in Dunedin, charging down an attempted All Blacks clearance to score the only try of the game. Perhaps surprisingly for a player who scored frequently in the club game, it also turned out to be the only Test try of his career. McLauchlan was back in the fold three years later when the touring party, now captained by McBride, won 21 of the 22 matches they played in South Africa and drew the last one to earn the nickname 'The Invincibles'. It was a physically bruising, often violent tour but the Lions proved too strong for their Springbok hosts as they clinched the Test series by three matches to one. McLauchlan was again pivotal, playing in every Test match just as he had done in New Zealand, making him one of just five players to be ever-present across the two victorious series. International rugby had come late to the man from the Ayrshire village of Tarbolton, not a renowned stronghold for the sport. When he made his Scotland debut a month short of his 27th birthday in an 8-3 Five Nations loss to England at Twickenham in March 1969, he became the first former pupil of Ayr Academy and ex-Jordanhill College student to be capped for his country. 'Much of that day is a haze but I remember sitting in the changing room at 2.50pm,' he wrote in his autobiography, Mighty Mouse. ''Open the doors', I thought. 'Let me get out there and at them'. I had waited all my life for that moment.' McLauchlan wasn't big for a loosehead at under 15 stone and just 5ft8 tall but what he lacked in physical stature he made up for with tenacity and determination, in the scrum especially where he would regularly give his tighthead opponent a difficult afternoon. His club performances for Jordanhill and West of Scotland brought him belatedly to the attention of the Scotland selectors — six years after his first trial — starting a decade-long period of international recognition where he'd go on to establish himself in the team before becoming captain in 1973. He would lead his country 19 times, an achievement that stood as a record until it was later surpassed by David Sole. On one of those occasions, another Calcutta Cup clash with the Auld Enemy, he captained the team despite having broken a bone in his leg against Ireland just a fortnight earlier. Although he came from a corner of the country where football, racing pigeons and whippets were the favoured pastimes, McLauchlan would become a rugby obsessive. 'I was hooked straight away,' he admitted. 'I loved the physicality, the brutality and the camaraderie of it. Before long, the game had become the be-all and end-all of my life. 'I never wanted to give up. I played every minute I could play. I used to go down to Wales mid-week and play. I'd go to Ireland at the weekends and play on the Sunday. At that time Scottish Rugby had a ban on Sunday rugby but it didn't seem to matter too much in Ireland. It was quite good. You'd play in Glasgow and get the six o'clock plane to Dublin and come back on the Sunday night.' The 1970s were not a hugely memorable period for Scottish rugby overall, with the unlikely five-way tie in 1973 the only championship Scotland celebrated throughout the decade. The feeling was, though, that it could have been even worse had McLauchlan not done his best to lift the level through both word and deed until his international retirement in 1979, again with another Test match against the All Blacks, this time at Murrayfield. He worked as a PE teacher at Broughton High School in Edinburgh, launched his own marketing firm and even had a brief spell in journalism but rugby remained in the blood, making it little surprise that he would continue to contribute to the sport later in life. He served as president of Scottish Rugby from 2010 to 2012 and remained on the board until 2019. 'I've always been involved in rugby in one way or another,' he said at the time. 'I suppose it kind of appealed to my sense of humour, the thought of being on the board. 'It's like everything else. I just wanted to do something to help rugby. It's a plain, simple fact: if you don't do anything, you don't get much from it — but if you try to do something you get a great deal of self-satisfaction and reward comes from effort.' McLauchlan would fill other rugby roles, too, chairing the British and Irish Lions Trust, becoming a director of European Professional Club Rugby, chair of the Murrayfield Injured Players Foundation and a director of the Hearts & Balls rugby charity. In 2013 he was inducted into Scottish Rugby's Hall of Fame and four years later received an OBE for services to rugby. Later in life he moved from the Corstorphine area of Edinburgh to settle on Islay where his wife Eileen, who died in 2023, hailed from. News of McLauchlan's sad passing prompted tributes from all across the rugby world, including from former team-mate — and another Lions and Scotland legend — Andy Irvine. 'He was some character and some player,' said Irvine. 'He was smaller than most props he came up against but I never saw anyone get the better of him. He was so tough, almost indestructible. What a fantastic career he had for Scotland and the Lions. It's very, very sad.' The sad news broke just as Lions head coach Andy Farrell and his players were boarding the plane to Australia ahead of their Test series against the Wallabies. They paid tribute to one of their own: 'Our thoughts are with the friends and family of former Scotland captain and Lions great Ian McLauchlan.'
Powys County Times
an hour ago
- Powys County Times
Finn Russell says Andy Farrell helped put any tension with Johnny Sexton to bed
Finn Russell has revealed that he buried the hatchet with Johnny Sexton with the help of Andy Farrell as the old foes join forces on the British and Irish Lions tour to Australia. Sexton has previously been critical of Russell, labelling him 'flashy' and a 'media darling', while adding he would choose Owen Farrell over him against the Wallabies because the former England captain is a 'Test match animal'. And in his autobiography, the Ireland great confessed that it 'kills me to this day' that he was overlooked in favour of Russell for the 2021 Lions tour to South Africa. Now the former fly-half rivals are working together to plot the downfall of Australia, with Sexton acting as the Lions kicking skills coach and Russell in pole position to take the playmaking duties in the Test series. When they first linked up after the players involved in the Gallagher Premiership and United Rugby Championship finals arrived into camp earlier this week, any acrimony quickly faded. 'It's just been bit of a craic. It was never a thing. When we came in, we had a laugh straight away and Andy kind of put it to bed so that was good,' Scotland international Russell said. 'Not that it was ever going to be an issue, I don't believe. We're all here with the same goal, which is to win the series. 'I've only been here a few days but it's been good working with Johnny. I'm happy to bounce questions off him and chat to him about what he's seeing. 'With the numbers we've had, he's had to jump in sometimes so it's been quite funny being on the same training side as him. 'It's good to have a guy with his experience here. I can chat to him and bounce things off him as and when I need. 'All the coaches seem open to conversations and chats. It's a good environment to be in.' Australia will be Russell's third expedition with the Lions, with all three set to be very different experiences. In 2017 in New Zealand he was part of the controversial 'Geography Six', a group of Scotland and Wales players who were called into Warren Gatland's squad not on merit but because of their close proximity while on summer tours. Four years later he travelled to South Africa where all matches were played behind closed doors due to the pandemic, denying the Lions their famed 'sea of red' support. The Bath ringmaster started the third Test against the Springbocks. 'New Zealand was still amazing because it was my first time being called up to the Lions,' Russell said. 'We weren't there for the whole tour, but to have gone to New Zealand and played was really cool for me. 'And then in 2021 it was special going the whole time, even though it was Covid. We couldn't have family and friends or fans at the game, but it was still amazing in a different way. 'In terms of the boys, we probably got to know each other a little bit better because it was just us in the hotel and whatnot. I'm looking forward to what this one's going to be like.'
