AT the memorial service for my friend Angus Crichton-Miller in Edinburgh on Saturday, there was a fine display of pictures from his long and well-lived life. One of them was of the team which he once told me had given him the biggest thrill of his rugby life – the Scotland team which won the Grand Slam in 1990.

Angus loved sport, particularly rugby and horse racing, and in the latter his great business talents were brought to bear when he was a memorable chairman of the Racecourse Association who always talked up the sport – he once predicted racing would be more popular than football, and that’s about the only thing he got wrong in his years of service.

Knowing that he had not long to live, in typical Angus fashion he planned his memorial service himself. Proof of how much Angus enjoyed that Grand Slam victory – or maybe he just wanted to wind up his many English friends in the hall – was that a video was played to the congregation which was the superb introduction by Bill McLaren to the TV coverage of that incredible match against England on March 17, 1990.

It got me to thinking whether that team, the finest I ever saw play in the dark blue, could beat the current Scottish team. I can well imagine Scott Hastings’s reply if I was to ask him. He would say “probably not, but then most of us are in our 50s and 60s now”.

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I have been taken to task in some quarters for recently expressing my opinion that modern rugby has become the domain of the physically powerful, a game of muscle and brawn above all else. Now I think I can prove my contention, for as it happens I recently came into possession of a programme for the Scotland v Wales match in 1973. It was a most informative and educational read, especially about the vital statistics of each of the 30 players who started that cliffhanger of a match which Scotland won 10-9 in a Five Nations tournament in which the title was shared by all five countries – the only time that happened in the entire history of the championship and something that will never happen again.

Both Scotland and Wales had some superb players on the Murrayfield pitch that day, including the likes of Phil Bennett, Gerald Davies, Gareth Edwards, JPR Williams, John Taylor and Mervyn Davies in the red jerseys while Scotland had Andy Irvine, Billy Steele – top try scorer in the tournament – Ian McGeechan, Dougie Munro, Ian McLauchlan, Sandy Carmichael, Alastair McHarg, PC Brown and Nairn McEwan. The total pack weight for Scotland that day was 114st 7lbs, while the Welsh eight weighed in at 120st exactly – apologies for using “old money” measurements but I’m sure you can convert to metric if you need to.

By comparison, the Scottish pack which started the match against France in Paris this year weighed a total of 141st – an average of more than 3st per man over their 1973 counterparts. There’s not quite the same disparity between the backs in that team and Scotland’s modern back line, but today’s backs are still much taller and heavier on average.

In that match against Wales, Alastair McHarg was the tallest Scot at 6ft 5ins yet he weighed only 14st 7lbs. Flank forward Nairn McEwan was just 5ft 10ins and 13st 4lbs. By comparison, our current tallest player Richie Gray is 6ft 9ins and weighs around 19st 7lbs, while flanker Jamie Ritchie is 6ft 4ins and weighs 17st. The great Gerald Davies was just 5ft 9ins and 11st 10lbs – would he even get a game nowadays?

It is proof, as if any were needed, that the game of rugby union has changed measurably, at least at the professional level. No question, the players are bigger and more powerful from 1 to 23, yet is the modern game any better than it was in 1973? With so many “phases” these days, my answer has to be no – couldn’t we limit the number of phases in some way, say 10 and then you have to surrender the ball?

Remember that, back then, all these great players I’ve named and every other rugby union player were all amateurs and were not paid a penny other than expenses for playing. Yet to play international rugby these players all had to be fit and that took a lot of time and effort on and off the pitch, so I for one did not resent the introduction of professional rugby in 1995.

I don’t view rugby’s past with rose-tinted specs, and I saw many a poor international match in the era before professionalism, but I can’t help feeling that Nairn McEwan, for example, would not get his place in a modern Scottish team because he was just too wee. I don’t really know if the muscle and brawn approach is being taken at club level, but I suspect there will be many coaches who want just big men in their side, and that’s a damn shame.