Birth name | W. I. Douglas Elliot | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Date of birth | 18 April 1923 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Place of birth | Stow, Scotland | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Date of death | 12 March 2005 81) | (aged||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Place of death | Melrose, Scotland | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Rugby union career | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Douglas Elliot (18 April 1923 – 12 March 2005) [2] also known as W.I.D. Elliot and Doug(ie) Elliot was a Scottish international rugby union player, who played for Scotland. [3]
He was six feet three inches and over fourteen stone. [4] He was a backrow forward, and has also been inducted to the Scottish Sports Hall of Fame.
Elliot played for Edinburgh Academicals. [5]
He was capped by Edinburgh District to play Glasgow District in the inter-city match of 1947. [5]
He was capped by Cities District in 1947 to play against Australia. [6]
He played for the Scotland Probables side in December 1947. [7]
He was capped 29 times for Scotland between 1947 and 1954. [3] He was never dropped, but did spend at least six matches away due to injuries including the whole 1953 seasons. [3]
He was one of the few Scottish players of the period to escape untarnished after the 44–0 defeat by South Africa. [3] Elliot was the only Scot to be named by the South African rugby correspondent R.K. Stent amongst the best players who had faced the 1951-2 Springbok tour to the British Isles. [8]
Allan Massie talking of the 1950s, said:
Bill McLaren remembers in 1947 going for a Scotland trial, and playing at the back of the line-out,
Elliot was invited to play with the British and Irish Lions, but could not afford to spend six months away from his farm; his offer to pay for his flights (the Lions generally went by boat in those days.) [3]
The amateur era was quite different, in both ethos and time, but as Elliot once told Bill McLaren, farmwork could take a lot of time too:
McLaren says when selecting his all-time Scotland XV that "I believe, for instance, that Douglas Elliot (Edinburgh Academicals)... would still have made massive impact in the modern game although it might have irked him not a little that he would have to give far more of his time from farming to attend so many squad sessions." [12]
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