Tom Smith - Rampant Lion

THE WEE MAN who punches above his weight is one of the pillars of Scottish life. On the battle field, the kilted “Poison Dwarves” taking their bayonets into the German trenches in World War I. On the sports field, the likes of Alan Morton, “The Wee Blue Devil,” or Jimmy 'Jimky' Johnstone, befuddling larger opponents; in the boxing ring, Benny Lynch or Ken Buchanan, small men with dynamite in their fists – these are Scottish sporting icons.

On the rugby field, we produced the likes of Ken Scotland or Roy Laidlaw and in one of the hardest sporting places there is – the front row of the scrum – the likes of Hughie McLeod, Ian McLauchlan, David Sole and Tom Smith, whose death on Wednesday, aged just 50, has cast a pall of gloom right across the rugby world.

Mind you, at five foot ten and just over 16 stones, in some Scottish sporting circles, Tom would have been “Big Man”, but, in the front rows of the Open Rugby, he was something of a pygmy. However, a pygmy who could move mountains.

Tom was from the Caledonia Diaspora, born in London to an English father and a Scottish mother. His Scottish sporting genes were strong, however, his great-grand-father Jack Bell won ten Scotland caps in the last years of Queen Victoria's reign. Bell's career, like that of his great-grandson, embraced the switch from amateur to professional play and he was one of the first English-based professionals to be capped by Scotland. He also had a successful spell with Celtic before going into coaching, while running a successful cycle business on Merseyside.

Tom Smith was initially schooled at Emanuel School, in London, before what must have been the culture shock of moving to Rannoch School, in the wilds of the Highlands. Here, the rugby pitch was more-often covered in deep snow than playable, but, the school's ethos of physical as well as mental development meant, the young Tom Smith built-up a core of fitness which was to stand him in good stead in his adult years.

He joined Dundee High School FP from school, before switching to Watsonians - with whom he won the Melrose Sevens. He admitted, however, being worked-over in training twice a week at Dundee by Scotland A cap Danny Herrington, one-third of the fabled “Tillicoultry Troglodytes” was the making of him. Smith famously said: “When I joined my first senior club in Dundee, there was an old prop called Danny Herrington, a bit of a local legend, who basically shoved my head up my arse in training, twice a week every week for what seemed like years. Now, that's what you call a learning curve. Those training sessions were my classroom. Danny took the view that a young prop should have his share of bad experiences before trying to inflict them on other people." Sadly Danny, like Tom Smith, was taken, far-too-soon, by Cancer.

When Jim Telfer took Scottish Rugby down the Districts route in the difficult first years of Open Rugby, Tom was assigned to Caledonia Reds, helping them win the first Inter-District Championship of the Open era. He then switched to Glasgow Caledonians, when four Districts became two full-time professional teams and, in the Calcutta Cup match of 1997, he won the first of his eventual 61 Scotland caps.

At the end of that season, Tom was a somewhat surprise selection for the British & Irish Lions' Tour of South Africa. He only had three caps and pre-tour expectation was that Lion #668 TJ Smith would be a “Dirt Tracker,” a member of the midweek team, which played the lesser matches – the rugby media were convinced English props Graham Rowntree and Jason Leonard would be the Test props.

But, Jim Telfer had other views. As he said: “He was a rugby player first and a prop second,” Telfer recalled: “He was never compromised when he had the ball in his hands. He could move it quickly or take the player on or hold it up. His skill was the thing I remember with Tom.

“You could play a different kind of game when he was in the team.“He could be a link player but was still a solid servant in the scrums and line outs. He was always a very good scrummager – he was the ideal shape because he had the bulk as well.”

Telfer also believed Smith and Irishman Paul Wallace had the strength and skill to get underneath the taller and heavier South African props and take them to places they didn't want to go. His belief was perhaps sorely-tested by the first couple of scrums in the First Test, but, by the end of the winning series, Telfer's belief in his two props had been vindicated.

After that tour, Tom was an automatic choice for Scotland for the next eight seasons, winning those 61 caps, playing in two Rugby World Cups and in the victorious Five Nations-winning squad of 1999, and captaining the side in three Tests. He toured again with the Lions in 2001, to Australia, winning six straight Test caps. That same year he was Scotland's Player of the Year.

After a couple of seasons with the new Glasgow Warriors, he switched to French rugby, where he played for Brive, before, in 2001, returning to the UK, to spend eight successful seasons with Northampton Saints.

On hanging-up his boots, Tom went to Murrayfield, to coach the Edinburgh forwards, but, he had so-enjoyed his time in France, when, in 2012, he was offered the chance to become forwards coach at Lyon, he returned there – he would never leave.

In November, 2019, he revealed he was suffering from Stage 4 Cancer, which had spread from his colon to his brain and liver. He battled the disease with the same head-on courage and drive with which he had played the game. Before the 2021 Autumn International against the South Africans, he made an emotional return to Murrayfield, to be inducted into the Scottish Rugby Hall of Fame and present the match ball, before returning to France to await his fate.

The end came on Wednesday, wife Zoe and children Amelie, Angus and Teddy, plus the wider Smith family are no doubt distraught at their loss, and rightly so. However, that loss is felt too across the rugby world, particularly here in Scotland, where we have lost, way, way before we should have, one of our greatest players.

THOMAS JAMES SMITH – prop forward: 31 October, 1971 – 6 April, 2022