There was an added sense of poignancy that news of Ian ‘Mighty Mouse’ McLauchlan’s sad passing should arrive just as the latest batch of British and Irish Lions were jetting off on this summer’s adventure to Australia.
McLauchlan, who died on Friday aged 83, was considered one of the toughest and feistiest players to ever pull on a Scotland jersey, something he did 43 times between 1969 and 1979.
It was his performances for the Lions, however, that elevated the Ayrshire-born prop’s reputation and brought him to wider recognition, something he did with distinction over two tours of duty.
The first came in 1971 when a group that included Welsh great JPR Williams and Irish icon Willie John McBride won two games out of four and drew the final one to secure what remains the Lions’ only series victory in New Zealand.
McLauchlan played a pivotal role in the first Test in Dunedin, charging down an attempted All Blacks clearance to score the only try of the game. Perhaps surprisingly for a player who scored frequently in the club game, it also turned out to be the only Test try of his career.
McLauchlan was back in the fold three years later when the touring party, now captained by McBride, won 21 of the 22 matches they played in South Africa and drew the last one to earn the nickname ‘The Invincibles’. It was a physically bruising, often violent tour but the Lions proved too strong for their Springbok hosts as they clinched the Test series by three matches to one.
‘Mighty Mouse’ represented the Lions across two tours, to New Zealand and South Africa
McLauchlan was made an OBE in 2017 for services to rugby
McLauchlan was again pivotal, playing in every Test match just as he had done in New Zealand, making him one of just five players to be ever-present across the two victorious series.
International rugby had come late to the man from the Ayrshire village of Tarbolton, not a renowned stronghold for the sport. When he made his Scotland debut a month short of his 27th birthday in an 8-3 Five Nations loss to England at Twickenham in March 1969, he became the first former pupil of Ayr Academy and ex-Jordanhill College student to be capped for his country.
‘Much of that day is a haze but I remember sitting in the changing room at 2.50pm,’ he wrote in his autobiography, Mighty Mouse. ‘“Open the doors”, I thought. “Let me get out there and at them”. I had waited all my life for that moment.’
McLauchlan wasn’t big for a loosehead at under 15 stone and just 5ft8 tall but what he lacked in physical stature he made up for with tenacity and determination, in the scrum especially where he would regularly give his tighthead opponent a difficult afternoon.
His club performances for Jordanhill and West of Scotland brought him belatedly to the attention of the Scotland selectors — six years after his first trial — starting a decade-long period of international recognition where he’d go on to establish himself in the team before becoming captain in 1973.
He would lead his country 19 times, an achievement that stood as a record until it was later surpassed by David Sole.
On one of those occasions, another Calcutta Cup clash with the Auld Enemy, he captained the team despite having broken a bone in his leg against Ireland just a fortnight earlier.
Although he came from a corner of the country where football, racing pigeons and whippets were the favoured pastimes, McLauchlan would become a rugby obsessive.
‘I was hooked straight away,’ he admitted. ‘I loved the physicality, the brutality and the camaraderie of it. Before long, the game had become the be-all and end-all of my life.
McLauchlan also captained his country 19 times, a record before David Sole surpassed his tally
‘I never wanted to give up. I played every minute I could play. I used to go down to Wales mid-week and play. I’d go to Ireland at the weekends and play on the Sunday. At that time Scottish Rugby had a ban on Sunday rugby but it didn’t seem to matter too much in Ireland. It was quite good. You’d play in Glasgow and get the six o’clock plane to Dublin and come back on the Sunday night.’
The 1970s were not a hugely memorable period for Scottish rugby overall, with the unlikely five-way tie in 1973 the only championship Scotland celebrated throughout the decade.
The feeling was, though, that it could have been even worse had McLauchlan not done his best to lift the level through both word and deed until his international retirement in 1979, again with another Test match against the All Blacks, this time at Murrayfield.
He worked as a PE teacher at Broughton High School in Edinburgh, launched his own marketing firm and even had a brief spell in journalism but rugby remained in the blood, making it little surprise that he would continue to contribute to the sport later in life.
He served as president of Scottish Rugby from 2010 to 2012 and remained on the board until 2019.
‘I’ve always been involved in rugby in one way or another,’ he said at the time. ‘I suppose it kind of appealed to my sense of humour, the thought of being on the board.
‘It’s like everything else. I just wanted to do something to help rugby. It’s a plain, simple fact: if you don’t do anything, you don’t get much from it — but if you try to do something you get a great deal of self-satisfaction and reward comes from effort.’
McLauchlan would fill other rugby roles, too, chairing the British and Irish Lions Trust, becoming a director of European Professional Club Rugby, chair of the Murrayfield Injured Players Foundation and a director of the Hearts & Balls rugby charity.
The former prop was SRU president from 2010-2012 and remained on the board until 2019
In 2013 he was inducted into Scottish Rugby’s Hall of Fame and four years later received an OBE for services to rugby. Later in life he moved from the Corstorphine area of Edinburgh to settle on Islay where his wife Eileen, who died in 2023, hailed from.
News of McLauchlan’s sad passing prompted tributes from all across the rugby world, including from former team-mate — and another Lions and Scotland legend — Andy Irvine.
‘He was some character and some player,’ said Irvine. ‘He was smaller than most props he came up against but I never saw anyone get the better of him. He was so tough, almost indestructible. What a fantastic career he had for Scotland and the Lions. It’s very, very sad.’
The sad news broke just as Lions head coach Andy Farrell and his players were boarding the plane to Australia ahead of their Test series against the Wallabies.
They paid tribute to one of their own: ‘Our thoughts are with the friends and family of former Scotland captain and Lions great Ian McLauchlan.’
