Crouch, touch ... engage | HK Scottish luncheon goes ‘hard core’ with pride, past glories and Chalmers

Last Saturday I had the pleasure of emceeing a question-and-answer session with Scottish rugby legend Craig Chalmers. The occasion was the third members luncheon arranged by Bloomberg HK Scottish rugby club, and the audience comprised many of the great and good of our local rugby community.

They weren’t disappointed by the guest speaker as former fly-half Chalmers spoke openly and honestly about his life in rugby – the good times and the bad – with lots of humour along the way.

Sharing the stage with him, and prompting the memories and anecdotes, was a rare privilege.

What really struck me as I did my homework on Chalmers’ career was how much the game has changed since the advent of professionalism back in 1995. Well, actually what struck me first was the top result from a simple Google search of his name. “Craig Chalmers sacked from Prince Charming panto role due to porn star past”, it read. As it turned out that was a different Craig Chalmers, though in the interests of thoroughness I did spend a couple of hours making sure.

The rugby-playing Chalmers won his first Scottish cap in January 1989, went on to play for his country on 60 occasions, and was selected for the 1989 British & Irish Lions tour to Australia where he became the youngest ever Lions test stand-off.

During his time with Scotland they completed a Grand Slam (1990), narrowly lost a World Cup semi-final to England (1991), and were unfortunate not to proceed further than the quarter-finals of the 1995 World Cup. As Chalmers proudly noted, in the early 1990s Scotland could hold their own against anyone on their day.

Things have not been so bright for Scottish rugby in the two decades since, though Chalmers spoke encouragingly of the coming autumn internationals and next year’s Six Nations and World Cup.