It was slumming it a bit for New Zealand, being demoted to the third-place play-off in the 1991 Rugby World Cup. They’d been tamed 16-6 by arch-rivals Australia in the World Cup semi-final at Dublin’s Lansdowne Road, so the contest for third place against Scotland represented little more than a walk in the (Cardiff Arms) park for captain Gary Whetton and his vanquished giants.

Not so for the Scots, who had performed above themselves to reach the semi-final - even if they did play all their games at Murrayfield. After strolling through their four-team pool with a 100 per-cent record, David Sole’s men followed up by caning Western Samoa 28-6 to reach the last four for the one and only time. And it could have been even better for the Scots but for the Rob Andrew drop goal which saw England home 9-6 in a tryless nailbiter of a semi-final.

That third-place play-off in Cardiff on October 30, 1991was the only time Sole’s men played outside Scotland in the entire tournament. That match was also one of the last international matches I covered as Scottish rugby correspondent of The Sun - and certainly the one that caused me most embarrassment.

It wasn’t much of a game, really. In fact, I remember very little about it…apart from the fact that, rather predictably, the All Blacks won. I duly filed my report and after picking up a few mundane quotes, phoned my sports editor to check that everything was OK.

"I presume you’re doing a separate piece on the Finlay Calder incident because there’s nothing about it in your copy," said the boss. I was totally mystified. What on earth had the 1989 British Lions captain been up to?

"You know, the head butt on Sean Fitzpatrick," he went on. "They’ve been playing it over and over on TV and we want to go big on it."

"Umm, leave it with me," I mumbled, realising I’d completely missed some sort of story involving Scotland flanker Calder and All Blacks' hooker Fitzpatrick. The weird thing is that no one around me in the press box had noticed anything, either.

Panic stations kicked in and off I raced in the direction of the changing rooms, hoping against hope that the players were still around. Fortunately they were…but it was hush-hush all round and neither Calder nor Fitzpatrick were saying anything about the alleged incident. They were among the hardest men in rugby and as far as they were concerned, it was just one of those things that happens in the heat of the action. Anyway, as no-one was hurt, neither camp wanted to make an issue of it - and certainly not air their dirty washing in The Sun or any other newspaper.

I honestly can’t remember how I got out of the stickiest situation I ever got glued into. All I know is that I escaped with my reputation more or less intact…even if my sports editor never did get that story to ‘go big on’. Having said that, my face was as red as a Welsh rugby jersey for a long time afterwards!

If it’s any consolation, ‘bad boy’ Calder claimed later: "The thing with Sean was nothing." Nothing like as embarrassing for you as it was for me, Finlay.

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