In starting his address to the 120 GROGs present, Craig Redpath, one of the foremost coaches in the Premiership, described himself as being a shy person who was not used to speaking in public and warned that they should not expect anything witty or funny from him. He promised to talk honestly about the game of rugby and the simple principles he has always applied from his early playing days right up to the present time as coach of the current titleholders of the Premiership, Marr RFC. He didn’t stint in details of his lifelong rugby career and was fulsome in his praise of many he had played with, played against and had been coached by. These included his brother Bryan, whom he described (with no sense of bias) as “one of the best scrum halfs Scotland ever had”; the GHK team of the 90’s, “the most talented team of the era”; Craig Chalmers “a phenomenal player who made the most of his talent” and, of course, the Melrose coach, the great Jim Telfer, who was quite simply, “nuts”! An interesting snippet he let drop was that, if the current HIA rules had applied at the time of the famous 1990 Grand Slam win, Craig Chalmers would not have been allowed to play as he had been knocked out the previous week. The things you hear at GROGS Lunches! Craig loved being involved in the national set-up. Being a full back he competed against greats like Gavin Hastings and Peter Dods and never received a full cap. He has no bitterness about this and said he would not want to be awarded something he didn’t feel he had earned. He described his time as a player as having been very simple, very humble and very fortunate, full of hard work and enjoyment. His coaching career started off with 4 years at East Kilbride, an eye opening experience in more ways than one, followed by 5 years at Ayr RFC where he felt he failed because he didn’t win anything. After taking a year out he settled in at Marr RFC, attracted by the sheer volume of raw talent available …. and the rest is history. In Craig Redpath we saw an honest, likeable and inspiring man who fully deserved the loud applause and the bottle of GROGS Special Whisky which the Chairman almost forgot to give him.