Gavin Hastings

As of June 11, 1995

Andrew Gavin Hastings OBE ( born January 3, 1962 in Edinburgh ) is a former Scottish rugby union player. He played for the Scottish national team and the British and Irish Lions on the position of the final art. He is considered one of the best players of his generation. With 667 points in 61 games for Scotland he held until 2008 the record until it overtook Chris Paterson. Until the World Cup 2007 he was moreover the player with the most points at World Cup tournaments, in the quarter -final match between England and Australia, however, it overtook Jonny Wilkinson.

Career

During his school years succeeded Hastings to be the first captain of a Scottish school team that could beat the English selection. In 1985, he led the team from the University of Cambridge in the traditional match against the team from Oxford to victory.

Hastings took the final position in the Scottish national team of Andy Irvine, who as the best player of Scotland was previously at this position. On January 7, 1986 Gavin gave to his brother Scott Hastings the side his debut with the national team, when they met on France. However, his first international match started very badly. He led from the kick-off, but went directly into the air. Usually a scrum at the center line is arranged with a throw for the opponents after a mistake of this kind, so that Hastings turned and the further course not initially followed. However, the French decided to surprisingly quickly smash the ball from the off and obtained following a trial due to the lack of concentration of the Scots. Hastings recovered from his error, however, and scored six penalty kicks, which ultimately handed to 18:17 victory.

Hastings was part of the Scottish team that was the third Grand Slam win in the history of the Five Nations in 1990. In 1995, he made ​​the game-winning try against the French national team for their first away victory of the Scots in France since 1969. Four years earlier, at the World Championships, he experienced the biggest disappointment of his career. In the final minutes of the semi-finals against England, he missed an easy penalty kick that would have put the Scots ahead. Ultimately Scotland lost with 6:9.

Hastings broke twice the world record for most points in an international match, which, however, was taken from him again the same day. At the 1995 World Championships he scored 44 points against the Ivory Coast, Simon Culhane scored but a few hours later for New Zealand a more counter to the historical 145:17 victory over Japan. Previously, he had at the first World Cup record with 29 points broken before Didier Camberabrero for France again on the same day scored a point more.

In 1996, Hastings an offer from the Scottish Claymores and joined the American Football kicker. However, it remained relatively unsuccessful in this sport, as for his individual performance. However, the Claymores succeeded in the achievement of the World Bowl.

In 2003, Hastings was inducted into the International Rugby Hall of Fame. From 2007 to 2010 he was president of Edinburgh Rugby, one of the two remaining professional clubs from Scotland.