Borders rugby hero Greig Laidlaw set to retire from playing

The ex-Scotland skipper, currently at Japan Rugby League One side Urayasu D-Rocks, this week announced that his playing days will be over once this season ends next month.

Edinburgh-born Laidlaw, most often deployed at scrum-half but occasionally at fly-half, started his sporting career at home-town side Jed-Forest and their youth team Jed Thistle, moving on to Edinburgh in 2007, Gloucester in 2014, France’s Clermont Auvergne in 2017 and his present club in the Chiba prefecture in 2020.

He made 137 appearances for Edinburgh, scoring 598 points; 59 for Gloucester, amassing 559 points; and 58 in France, generating 408 points.

Formerly a joiner by trade, he picked up 76 Scotland caps between 2011 and his international retirement in 2019, a record 40 of them as captain, 15 more than second-placed David Sole and almost twice as many as fellow Borderer Stuart Hogg, national captain from 2020 until last year.

That eight-year international career, following on from playing for Scotland at sevens from 2008 to 2010, saw him amass 714 points for his country, a total topped only by the 809 mustered by another representative of the region, Gala’s Chris Paterson, between 1999 and 2011.

Among the highlights of Laidlaw’s Scotland career was their 25-13 Six Nations win against England at Edinburgh’s Murrayfield Stadium in 2018 alongside Hawick’s Hogg and Melrose’s Pete Horne and Jamie Bhatti.

That was the first time they’d beaten the English for a decade and they followed it up with a 38-38 draw at London’s Twickenham Stadium the year after, Hawick’s Darcy Graham featuring that time round, to retain the Calcutta Cup, beginning the Scots’ most successful run in the fixture since the 1970s, head coach Gregor Townsend’s team having lost only one of their last half-dozen games against their neighbours.

It was after Scotland’s exit from 2019’s Rugby World Cup in Japan following a 28-21 pool loss to the hosts that Laidlaw gave up international rugby and he’s planning to stay put with wife Rachel and their sons in the land he’s called home for the last three years for the foreseeable future, he says.

“Playing rugby in Japan has been the most incredible experience,” he says in an Instagram post.

“Japanese culture is amazing, and to be able to see my children growing up here, watching them learn a new language and adapt to a different way of life is a privilege I will never take for granted.

“We intend, as a family, to stay in Japan a while longer but it is here I will finally hang up my playing boots.

“It is time to take everything I have learnt from a playing career I could only have dreamt of and move on into coaching.

“Throughout my playing career I have pushed myself, I have taken on new experiences, continuously learnt and immersed myself in different cultures.

“I have always enjoyed figuring out how to work as a team and how to get the best out of my team-mates, things I will take with me and continue to develop.

“I believe I have developed a really strong skill-set in performing under pressure and leadership, the two areas that I have learnt most about and that have always fascinated me.

“As a player, I would like to thank so many different people, not least Rachel and the boys for supporting my dreams and allowing me to live them.

“To everyone who has supported my playing journey, a huge thank-you and I hope you will be part of my next chapter also.”

2019’s world cup, including one appearance as captain, Stuart McInally having taken over by then, was his second. His first, in England in 2015, was more successful as he skippered the Scots out of a pool also including South Africa and Japan and into the last eight, only just missing out on a semi-final place after losing 35-34 to Australia despite kicking two conversions and five penalties.

Laidlaw also toured New Zealand with the British and Irish Lions in 2017, playing in six warm-up matches after being recruited as a replacement for England’s Ben Youngs. That call-up saw him follow in the footsteps of his uncle and fellow scrum-half Roy Laidlaw, called up by the Lions for their 1983 tour, also of New Zealand.

His two Calcutta Cup wins with Scotland were accompanied by silverware at club level – 2015’s European Professional Club Rugby Challenge Cup with Gloucester, kicking one conversion and four penalties as they got the better of his previous side Edinburgh, featuring Kelso’s Ross Ford, by 19-13 in the final at London’s Twickenham Stoop, and the same trophy four years later with Clermont Auvergne against La Rochelle in Newcastle, kicking three conversions and four penalties to help secure a 36-16 victory.

The Borderer’s final games as a player will be in two promotion/relegation play-offs against Hanazono Kintetsu Liners on Sunday, May 7, and Saturday, May 13.

Jed were among the first to pay tribute to Laidlaw following his retiral announcement, saying: “Congratulations to Greig from all at Jed-Forest on what has most definitely been an epic journey and career.”