Michael Dods on the day Scotland out-Frenched France in glorious Murrayfield win

Michael Dods outsprinted the French to score this superb try in the 1996 Five Nations at Murrayfield. Picture: Adam Elder/TSPL

Team kicks off, tall man leaps, ball disappears from view, re-emerges, gets booted into touch. A million rugby games have begun like this. It’s like a ritual, staid and almost sepulchral. No one in the crowd in that opening minute is going to choke on a Hawick Ball or spill their drink.

But 24 years ago against France, Scotland did something radically, drastically, sensationally different. I was in the Murrayfield crowd that afternoon and, although the memory can play tricks and I might have embroidered the moment, didn’t Gregor Townsend from almost under his own posts catch the ball on his nose? And pick up a bazooka to fire a 40-yard pass to Craig Joiner who settled the ball on his knee and made it talk like he was a vent act? And didn’t the ball then zip through the hands of every other player in the team, Doddie Weir and the muckle beastie Peter Wright included - a Harlem Globetrotteresque display of showboating reprised on a dozen other occasions before the 19-14 win was confirmed?

“Aye, just write that - sounds good!” laughs Michael Dods, the winger who scored all our points in a contest revered by all who witnessed it, which is why I’m using the excuse of the two countries meeting in the Autumn Nations Cup tomorrow to reminisce.

“That game definitely has its own mythology,” he adds. “I think you’ve got a wee bit carried away but what is true is that we ran the ball straight from kick-off and had decided before that’s what we’d do.

“The backs were me, Gregor, Shep [Rowen Shepherd], Jackie [Craig Joiner], Brushy [Bryan Redpath], Ian [Jardine] and Scott [Hastings]. In the team hotel before the game we told each other: ‘No one will expect this.’ France would have anticipated us kicking right back at them, up the touchline or a high ball. That was pretty much what every team did.

“Apart from Scott, who had bags of experience, we were all young, fit and, aye, maybe a bit daft. So Gregor collected the ball, there was a double-miss, and it came out to me on the wing. At first I think the crowd were astonished. Then came this tremendous roar.”

‘The most incredible match I ever played in’

And the roaring continued as the running continued. Scotland looked like they were on LSD. They looked like they’d stolen France’s clothes. “The French had a brilliant team and one of their greatest-ever back lines: [Thomas] Castaignede, [Philippe] Saint-Andre, [Emile] Ntamack, [Philippe] Carbonneau, [Thierry] Lacroix. They must have been thinking: ‘We normally do this to you.’”

Michael Dods gets in some kicking practice near Chepstow in preparation for the 1996 Five Nations match against Wales.

This was the second game of the Five Nations for Scotland following a win in Dublin. “That was unexpected. We were a new team. I scored my first try for my country that day, although from just a yard out. France were the lauded side. They’d already beaten England and were expected to continue on their merry way against us.”

Outside of our two Grand Slams, the last-ever Five Nations title and long-awaited wins in Cardiff and Paris, the game against Les Bleus on February 3, 1996 from a Scottish perspective probably rates as the most fun you can have with a rugby ball. “It was definitely the most incredible match I ever played in,” adds Dods, 51, the younger brother of ’84 Slammer Peter. “Rugby had just embarked on the professional era. Before then, for all but New Zealand, Australia and other big teams, the matches could be quite torrid. But that one I think showed it could be different, fast, exciting.”

As well as kicking three penalties, Galashiels-born Dods scored two tries and he admits there was a bit of fortune about both. “For the first one there was a ruck in the middle of the field. Brushy saw that their full-back [Jean-Luc] Sadourny had got caught up in it so he chipped into the space. I was like: ‘F*** sake, I’m going to have to chase this and look who I’ll be up against.’ [Laurent] Cabannes was renowned as one of the world’s fastest flankers but the passage of play leading to that ruck had gone on for ages and I got him in a foot-race at a good time because he seemed a bit puggled. I should tell you I ran from further back than halfway, shouldn’t I? Anyway I went past him and instead of him barging me, which would happen today, the ball took a very kind bounce right into my arms.

“The move leading to the second try started with a Brushy tap-penalty at the far end, then it was Gregor playing very flat and on the edge like Finn Russell does now. He brings Brushy back into it and he throws me a long spin pass. I remember thinking: ‘There’s only ten yards to go here, no one’s getting me, all I have to do is catch it.’ But there was a millisecond which could have been fatal. I took my eye off the ball before it was actually in my hands. I had a little juggle with it but managed to hold on.

Michael Dods is stopped by Lawrence Dallaglio, Jon Sleightholme and Paul Grayson during the 1996 Five Nations Grand Slam decider against England at Murrayfield. England won 18-9.

“The crowd were magnificent that day and never stopped cheering. We tried not to stop running: tap-penalties, quick restarts, the ball always moving. We were telling France: ‘If you’re going to beat us today this is how the game’s being played.’

You could have a few pints post-match in those days...

“I think when Scotland come up against the more fancied teams the element of surprise can be very useful - and the slow walk in ’90 [Slam decider against England] is the greatest example of that. The French have always been my favourite side to watch, right from when my brother played against the [Jean-Pierre] Rives-[Serge] Blanco team which had such unbelievable flamboyance. But I’ve got to admit that just on that day in ’96 they were probably a bit below their best.

“I remember asking the rest of our back three, Shep and Jackie: ‘Is this really happening?’ France did hit back and after I missed a couple of kicks I was worried the game might end up another of these glorious Scottish failures. Maybe folk thought that about the football team last week when Serbia equalised in the final minute but they came through and so did we. Afterwards the French were very gracious. You could have a few pints post-match in those days and we were so chuffed with ourselves. And that’s when somebody mentioned the s-word … ”

Michael Dods in action for the Borders during a Heineken Cup match against Brive at Netherdale in 1997.

Slam. Scotland had almost achieved what would have been their fourth in history the season before, and a win in Cardiff in ’96 would have brought Richie Dixon and David Johnston’s men to the brink once more. “The word soon got banned. Wales were being written off, which was daft, and that game suddenly looked like the hardest of the championship because of what was riding on it. We didn’t play well down there and right at the end they missed a kick to draw.”

Scotland squeezed past the Welsh 16-14 and Dods remembers “a ton of hype” in the lead-up to the final match against England back at Murrayfield, with much of it focused on his chance to emulate big brother. “We were probably seen as favourites for that game which I don’t think is ever a good fit for a Scottish team.” England won 18-9 to poop our party, Dean Richards revelling in the role of principal killjoy. “Everywhere we put the ball he would turn up first - he strangled us. But I didn’t have a particularly good game and missed too many kicks. There was a good chance it would all come down to who kicked best and I decided to tweak my style, which was probably the wrong thing to do. I didn’t hang around afterwards and headed back down the Borders to my local, the Clovenfords Hotel. I knew everyone would be desperately disappointed with the result and I just wanted to be among friends.”

Keeping up with big brother Peter