George Graham (rugby)


George Graham born in Stirling, is a Scottish former professional rugby league and rugby union footballer; his role was prop forward. At 5'7" he was quite short for international rugby. He gained 25 caps for Scotland national rugby union team. Graham won his first cap against Australia at Murrayfield, Nov 22, 1997 and played his final test against Wales at Millennium Stadium, Apr 6, 2002 which Scotland won 22-27. At club level he began his career at Newcastle Falcons, and made 12 appearances for them as they won the 1997-98 Premiership.
Since retiring from playing Graham has moved into coaching. He was the Scotland forwards coach Frank Hadden until 2008 where he was let go following a review of the backroom staff after a disappointing 6 Nations campaign. The following year he became the head coach at Gala RFC where he has earned plaudits for the team's style of play.
Recently he has been linked to positions back in the professional ranks of the SRU once more, amongst which were for forwards coach at Edinburgh Rugby following Tom Smith's departure and also as a possible interim manager of the national side after Andy Robinson's resignation as coach in November 2012.
In late 2017 he took over from Darren Cunningham as coach of Hawick RFC who had lost 10 consecutive league games and sitting bottom of the BT Premiership but somehow managed to win 6 of their last 8 games and not just avoid automatic relegation but also a play off v Jed Forest and completed what many call "The Great Escape"