Should Andy Robinson go after this 6 nations?

So before the each round we have the results of the poll

Round 1 2 3
Yes 25% 55% 42%
No 30% 20% 37%
Depends if Scotland finish higher that 2nd last 44% 24% 20%

I felt it important after todays announcement to re-post the poll, with emphasis on the selections policy of AR (which seems to be the main issue)

Points to note - the centre partnership, can not pass, and lamont has not played 13!
2 x 7's and an 8 against the french back row


15 Stuart Hogg (Glasgow Warriors) 1 cap

14 Rory Lamont (Glasgow Warriors) 28 caps, 6 tries, 30 points
13 Sean Lamont (Scarlets) 62 caps, 8 tries, 40 points
12 Graeme Morrison (Glasgow Warriors) 32 caps, 3 tries, 15 points
11 Lee Jones (Edinburgh Rugby) 2 caps

10 Greig Laidlaw (Edinburgh Rugby) 4 caps, 1 try, 1 conversion, 2 penalties, 13 points
9 Mike Blair (Edinburgh Rugby) 77 caps, 7 tries, 35 points

1 Allan Jacobsen (Edinburgh Rugby) 62 caps
2 Ross Ford (Edinburgh Rugby) 55 caps, 2 tries, 10 points CAPTAIN
3 Geoff Cross (Edinburgh Rugby) 10 caps
4 Richie Gray (Glasgow Warriors) 18 caps
5 Jim Hamilton (Gloucester) 36 caps, 1 try, 5 points
6 John Barclay (Glasgow Warriors) 34 caps, 2 tries 10 points
7 Ross Rennie (Edinburgh Rugby) 13 caps
8 David Denton (Edinburgh Rugby) 3 caps

Substitutes

16 Scott Lawson (Gloucester) 31 caps, 2 tries, 10 points
17 Ed Kalman (Glasgow Warriors) 1 cap
18 Alastair Kellock (Glasgow Warriors) 38 caps, 1 try, 5 points
19 Richie Vernon (Sale Sharks) 15 caps
20 Chris Cusiter (Glasgow Warriors) 57 caps, 3 tries, 15 points
21 Duncan Weir (Glasgow Warriors) uncapped
22 Nick De Luca (Edinburgh Rugby) 31 caps, 1 try, 5 points

Get rid of this cretin. He has ruined my and every other Scotland supporter's 6N!

He must go every game confirms it.

Andy, good luck in your new job

so after a few votes a swing to the Yes. How will the vote continue as people finally get off the floor after falling off their seat seeing THAT partnership

S Lamont has never played a professional game at 13, and his career is now nearly 10 years long.

Even if we do finish better than 2nd last, those who are choosing that option, think of where we might have ended up if we had a better coach than that still.

I liked Robinson at the start, he seemed to have a good mindset. But alas it was a honeymoon period.

Who cares if there's no alternatives - that's the problem with Scottish rugby, we're content with rubbish and so no one will take us.

It's a yes from me.

The selections of Barclay at 6 and Morrison at 12 against France are unforgivable.

So far the clown hasn't got one selection right in this year's 6N!

Even during the world cup he insisted on playing big lumebring numpties at 12!

And if you beat France?

RubyGuby wrote:And if you beat France?

We won't. Not with that team.

I think you will win but not sure if that would be a good thing for scottish rugby

NO chance of beating France with that team.

If we win and we win well, then I may review my vote, but do not expect to...

As well as his ridiculous selections, its the way he then insults supporters by suggesting things like "Dan Parks has a great attacking game", "Graeme Morrisons an excellent ball carrier" in order to justify them. He obviously knows theyre controversial selections otherwise he wouldnt have to come out with such tripe.

I also feel the media dont pressure him enough during the Q&A sessions about his ridiculous selections.

Can I change my vote to 'yes' after this merde French selection?

From today's Herald:

Robinson must be given the chance to reap the fruits of his labours

by Kevin Ferrie, Senior Sports Writer

As he contemplates these dangerous times for his team and his career, Andy Robinson could be forgiven today for feeling that his strengths, both personal and professional, have conspired to make life more difficult for him.


Robinson's decency as a human being meant that he gave his assistant coaches every opportunity to find new employment by offering them full notice once the difficult decision to allow their contracts to expire at the end of the season had been taken.

Annoucing it in the middle of a championship was always going to make it subject to scrutiny, however, and given that the first news to emerge was that Graham Steadman, the defence coach, was leaving, it could not have been more unfortunate.

Not only did that revelation come on the eve of Scotland's meeting with Wales, it also had the potential to make Robinson look foolish as it had been clear that Steadman had been doing a fine job. It has been clear to all that the inability to score tries is where the main failing lies.

It subsequently became clear that a full restructuring of the management team is under way and if anything that is overdue.

Misplaced loyalty may be part of the reason that Robinson has kept faith with a coaching team he inherited and that had won just three out of 16 Six Nations and World Cup matches.

However, it is also the case that elite rugby is not like elite football and more orthodox employment rules apply, meaning that it is much less likely that people can walk away from contracts, so he has doubtless had to wait to get the calibre of replacements he believes can help him take the national side to new heights.

Since his current assistants still have to help him get through more than half of this particular championship, the potential for them to become demoralised and for their credibility with those they are coaching to be damaged, cannot be underestimated, either.

Robinson believes there is sufficient mutual respect among all involved in the camp for that not to happen. But we shall see.

The other consideration here, which is why I believe he needs to bring in experienced help, is that Robinson's professional skill has perhaps helped to expose his professional weakness.

Few in the game would argue that the Englishman is an exceptional coach in his own right and that few players do not benefit from working with him.

Five years after he arrived in Scotland, his coaching work has resulted in producing a stronger national squad, in terms of depth, than there has perhaps ever been.

However, there have always been questions over Robinson's ability as a selector and, having generated as many options as he has, he is struggling to find the best combinations together on the pitch, to the extent that one of his players, Jim Hamilton, publicly raised his concern at the potentially unsettling effects of constantly chopping and changing the team.

All of which means that Robinson's regime is one of the worst in Scottish rugby history when it comes to bald statistics.

Looking at the Six Nations era, only Matt Williams, with one win in 10 Six Nations Championship matches, has performed worse.

Ian McGeechan's teams won seven and drew one of their 20 Six Nations matches between 2000 and 2003, winning three of five matches in reaching the 2003 World Cup quarter-finals, while Frank Hadden won six of 20 Six Nations matches between 2005 and 2009 and three of five matches to reach the 2007 World Cup quarter-finals.

Robinson's players have won just three – two of those against Romania and Georgia – and drawn just one of 16 matches in those two competitions and the prospect of matching Williams, the only other non-Scot to have coached Scotland, by leading the team through a whitewash campaign, will loom large should they lose to France.

Naturally, Robinson yesterday dismissed as "hypothetical" questioning about his future should the French prevail since we are not yet at the halfway mark in this championship.

What was put to him, however, was that Andy Nicol, the former Scotland captain who led Bath to Heineken Cup glory in 2008 when Robinson was head coach, had suggested in his role as a BBC pundit, that he may feel honour- bound to quit if Scotland fail to win a match and collect the Wooden Spoon.

There is, though, another way of looking at it, that, no matter what happens, Robinson should be considered honour-bound to stay around long enough to work for at least a year with the new management team that he is putting together.

Strong nerves may be required on the part of both the coach himself and the SRU hierarchy in the coming weeks, but as the head coach rightly suggested, much of this will be irrelevant if Scotland can upset the championship favourites on Sunday, at which point some will doubtless be asking why anyone should be going.

Some damning statistics in there. Win Lose or Draw against France (almost certainly a loss), I reckon AR will fall on his sword.

Best point made, good coach in terms of getting the best out of his players, terrible selector.

A lot of English posters warned us about that though didn't they?

Yup, they did

Whatever happens against France he shouldn't quit after this game. He should see through the tournament and then take stock.

Whilst I think we've now come to the end of the road with Robinson and this coaching team, and I think the end of this season would be a very good time to make a change, what we don't want is some silly interim period plus the prospect of searching for a coach mid-season. Let's finish the season and then find a new coach on a permanent basis to take over the summer tour and take things from there.

How many of these polls with the same titel have been made in the last month?

We do one each round of the tournament.

As you'd expect, the tide is turning sharply against Robinson. No coach should suffer external influences when picking his team, but make eccentric choices then you have to suffer the consequences if results and performances don't follow.

Oh ok, i thought that i had seen it a few times

One poll in each round, with the scores shown (in a messy table, I will fix that next time) to see how the results are changing.

Lifted from an internal leaked SRU memo:

From: I McLachlan, SRU President
To: G Townsend, Assistant Coach (Backs)

Re: Your future

Gregor, your contract is up for renewal so we thought we'd let you know what we have available that might suit your skill set and experience. You are aware that we have re-opened the car park on match days? Well, we need somebody to look after it and arrange that the cars are parked in nice neat rows and that every car that comes in has paid for a ticket. We think that this would best suit your man management and organisational skills. This is a very onerous position, do you think you are up to it?

Too late. Dan Parks got the job. Sometimes it´s all in the name which gets you the job.

KickAndChase wrote:S Lamont has never played a professional game at 13, and his career is now nearly 10 years long.
Even if we do finish better than 2nd last, those who are choosing that option, think of where we might have ended up if we had a better coach than that still.

I liked Robinson at the start, he seemed to have a good mindset. But alas it was a honeymoon period.

Who cares if there's no alternatives - that's the problem with Scottish rugby, we're content with rubbish and so no one will take us.

I think you find that he has both at club and international level................ kinda makes a mockery of your whole point

Brilliant ASBO

John Beattie seems to be defending Andy and says "Scotland will be making a big mistake if they sack Andy and Andy is making a big mistake if he resigns". All i can say John is: SHUT UP!!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/johnbeattie/2012/02/the_accepted_argument_is_that.html.

From the outside looking in, it dies seem to me that Scotland are developing under AR. The lack of tries hasn't been down to not creating anything, and you've certainly got some exciting players coming in.

I think that you're getting there, if anyone needs help, I think it may be Townsend (he is the attack coach isn't he?).

I can understand Lamont at centre too, the centres is somewhere that you're very short IMO. Although I'd like to see more of Bennett.

I did mention on another thread that i dont think that Robinson would go on his own accord. No i do believe that he will think/believe that he is getting there, he will want atleast another 1-2 years and Scotland will be back on top.

Scotland are playing some good rugby, when they played againast England, how the hell did they "NOT" score a try? What with all the breakes they made, all it needed was (ONE PASS) and they would of scored atleast 2/3 trys.

Scored two against us too (though only one was given).

What if Scotland do click and play attractive rugby and beat France, Ireland and Italy? Not beyond the realms of reality?

If I may play devil's advocate - 2 games so far. One you threw away and should have won but for a couple of handling errors. It didn't look much like the coaches fault, the tactics couldn't have been that bad to dominate England even if some off the selections were a bit odd - again.
Next game, you seemed have us worked out for periods of the game and if you hadn't had that first yellow card - bit of a stupid thing to do by the player and again certainly not the coaches fault - and had been granted the' knock on' try, it would have been a heck of a lot closer.
So, other than selections which frankly I seem to remember being a constant debate (excuse) under previous coaches too, it looks to me like the tactics were sound, the set piece is solid it's just the players making to many schoolboy errors on the field. Not exactly AR's fault and I doubt a new coach would improve things.
What if Scotland win their remaining games? It's unlikely maybe but is possible. Should he still go?

MonkeyOwain12 wrote:From the outside looking in, it dies seem to me that Scotland are developing under AR. The lack of tries hasn't been down to not creating anything, and you've certainly got some exciting players coming in.

really? winning occasional competitive games only, falling down the world rankings?

He had everything he wanted in terms of prep at the WC, we played poorly and didn't get out of the group. His poor selections are the difference in these tight games - the right selection may have got us thru.

When the team consistently underperforms then the coach must carry the can

AsLongAsBut100ofUs wrote:Lifted from an internal leaked SRU memo:

From: I McLachlan, SRU President
To: G Townsend, Assistant Coach (Backs)

Re: Your future

Gregor, your contract is up for renewal so we thought we'd let you know what we have available that might suit your skill set and experience. You are aware that we have re-opened the car park on match days? Well, we need somebody to look after it and arrange that the cars are parked in nice neat rows and that every car that comes in has paid for a ticket. We think that this would best suit your man management and organisational skills. This is a very onerous position, do you think you are up to it?

No no no!! The cars would be colliding into eachother and none of the cars would be able to find space.

funnyExiledScot wrote:

AsLongAsBut100ofUs wrote:Lifted from an internal leaked SRU memo:

From: I McLachlan, SRU President
To: G Townsend, Assistant Coach (Backs)

Re: Your future

Gregor, your contract is up for renewal so we thought we'd let you know what we have available that might suit your skill set and experience. You are aware that we have re-opened the car park on match days? Well, we need somebody to look after it and arrange that the cars are parked in nice neat rows and that every car that comes in has paid for a ticket. We think that this would best suit your man management and organisational skills. This is a very onerous position, do you think you are up to it?

No no no!! The cars would be colliding into eachother and none of the cars would be able to find space.

Or just before the cars got to tehir car parking space, as they are about to cross the white line they'll sponteneusly combust or their wheels will fall off.

If Robinson isn't sacked or decides he isn't going to resign then i WON'T bother to watch the team until he is gone, harsh but thats how STRONGLY I am AGAINST Robinson!!

CaleyShaun wrote:If Robinson isn't sacked or decides he isn't going to resign then i WON'T bother to watch the team until he is gone, harsh but thats how STRONGLY I am AGAINST Robinson!!

Well Caley, just join the rest of your 'nation' and don't bother with rugby. Tiny little country, tiny little mindset. A team is develping out of a minute gene pool.

Some of my best friends - ever are scottish but sometimes......get a grip!! If Robinson goes scotland will be eternal wooden spoon/spoon runners up. Good pack, solid defence......just lacking a bit of something, but its coming......great players are being unearthed, rennie, denton, grey....we'd take them, A game plan is there, but get a grip, you are a rugby minnow punching well above your weight. Sorry. No WUM, just facts

How the hell can we be a Minnow!! 11th in Rankings, if thats a minnow, god knows what you'll class a Japan or Russia?

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:

funnyExiledScot wrote:

AsLongAsBut100ofUs wrote:Lifted from an internal leaked SRU memo:

From: I McLachlan, SRU President
To: G Townsend, Assistant Coach (Backs)

Re: Your future

Gregor, your contract is up for renewal so we thought we'd let you know what we have available that might suit your skill set and experience. You are aware that we have re-opened the car park on match days? Well, we need somebody to look after it and arrange that the cars are parked in nice neat rows and that every car that comes in has paid for a ticket. We think that this would best suit your man management and organisational skills. This is a very onerous position, do you think you are up to it?

No no no!! The cars would be colliding into eachother and none of the cars would be able to find space.

Or just before the cars got to tehir car parking space, as they are about to cross the white line they'll sponteneusly combust or their wheels will fall off.

Then Toonie would be quoted in a press conference saying that he doesn't think parking cars neatly is very important.

Well, imo, Robinson only has 2 games left as Scotland boss.

He has said that he "can't hide" regarding his stats but he won't walk away (source: See link below my post) so it will HAVE to be the SRU board of directors who do the honours of SACKING him as soon as the 6 Nations end!!

Also, i do feel for Andy because if our players knew how to control a ball, we would have more wins and also more tries to our name, we must be the only team who has knocked on about 5 times a match.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rugbyunion/international/scotland/9107292/Scotland-coach-Andy-Robinson-insists-he-wont-walk-out.html.

i don't think so. I know you are 0 and 3 but for the first time i have seen signs that Scotland at last may be developing some cutting edge to go with a decent pack.

sometimes you have to lose games to make progress. eventually giving laidlaw,jones,hogg etc a shot has given scotland some cutting edge. for the first time in donkeys years i know feel worried that you will score trys and not just kick 3 pointers. you have a good front 5 and a promising young back row.

also its great entertainment watching his tantrums\

dublin_dave wrote:i don't think so. I know you are 0 and 3 but for the first time i have seen signs that Scotland at last may be developing some cutting edge to go with a decent pack.

sometimes you have to lose games to make progress. eventually giving laidlaw,jones,hogg etc a shot has given scotland some cutting edge. for the first time in donkeys years i know feel worried that you will score trys and not just kick 3 pointers. you have a good front 5 and a promising young back row.

also its great entertainment watching his tantrums\

While we may be getting some good backs, the reason why we want AR to go, is the fact he did not want to (and proberbly still does not want to) play them. Instead he kept picking his favourites who were poor AND out of form

Only injury and retirements FORCED him to select these players

Not an ideal indication of a good selectors imo

I get the impression that it´s his selections which irk the fans the most. He has given the pack some steel but he seems conservative in his coaching. It´s as if he thinks Scotland can only win by belting penalties over and containing the opposition. That might work for teams like Italy but I believe that is shortchanging the Scottish team. It´s not as if they are incapable of scoring tries as they have ably demonstrated as this 6N has progressed. So getting a coach in that can utilise Scotland´s strengths but also develop and add a more attacking bow to their armoury is a pressing concern. Sadly, for all of AR´s strengths, the latter does not seem to be a priority and that is why he must go.

Unfortunately who would that coach be?