England’s rugby team may be getting a series of drubbings from other national sides just now but its exotic Elephant Polo team has just beaten Scotland 6-1 in the final of the World Elephant Polo Championships, played in Nepal.

The 13th Duke of Argyll captains Scotland in the team sponsored by Chivas Regal. It saw victory in the World Championships in 2005 and again in 2006, but not this year. The Daily Mail has described the defeat as: ‘Duke’s jumbo loss’.

The 40-year-old Duke and his three team-mates are not short of improvisation skills. Finding that their practice sessions at the Duke’s family home of Inveraray Castle on Argyll’s Loch Fyne, were missing the odd vital ingredient – like elephants – they thought up some neat alternatives to acclimatise themselves in advance of the competition.

The Duke admitted to the Daily Mail that: ‘We worked on our swing by perching on the castle’s enormous stone mantelpiece. We also balanced on the roof of my 4×4 (presumably under engine power). You don’t want to fall off an elephant’. Indeed not.

Refusing to be downcast, the Duke insists: ‘We will continue to practise and compete. After all, we have to win back our crown’.

An interesting footnote to the story is an unusual and appropriate link between elephant and ducal rider. The motto of the Clan Campbell, whose Chief is the Duke of Argyll, is ‘Ne obliviscaris’ – ‘Do not forget’.