Statistics and Character
Smith played a total of 32 Tests for Scotland, and scored 24 tries, which still gives him a share of the Scottish record with Tony Stanger. Smith's record for international tries was not beaten until 1987 when the record was overtaken by Australian David Campese. His 24 career tries in the Five Nations (now Six Nations) remained a record until first equalled and then surpassed by Ireland's Brian O'Driscoll in 2011.
Richard Bath notes:
- "An exuberant young man, who once famously drove his car down an Edinburgh pavement after a post-international drinking binge, Smith held the record for tries scored (24), until he was overtaken by Australia's David Campese, 55 years after Smith retired to concentrate on his career as a solicitor."
Read more about this topic: Ian Smith (Scottish Rugby Player Born 1903)
Famous quotes containing the words statistics and/or character:
“We ask for no statistics of the killed,
For nothing political impinges on
This single casualty, or all those gone,
Missing or healing, sinking or dispersed,
Hundreds of thousands counted, millions lost.”
—Karl Shapiro (b. 1913)
“For character too is a process and an unfolding ... among our valued friends is there not someone or other who is a little too self confident and disdainful; whose distinguished mind is a little spotted with commonness; who is a little pinched here and protruberent there with native prejudices; or whose better energies are liable to lapse down the wrong channel under the influence of transient solicitations?”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)