Should Andy Robinson go after this 6 nations? (7th Vote)

flyhalffactory wrote:F@@k this is depressing,

One thing I used to say about my fellow posters is that we always had decent debates............. now we have just assassin airheads who produce "polls"

Can we get a poll to get rid of the lazy pollsters

Imperialbigdave wrote:

flyhalffactory wrote:F@@k this is depressing,

One thing I used to say about my fellow posters is that we always had decent debates............. now we have just assassin airheads who produce "polls"

Can we get a poll to get rid of the lazy pollsters

I forgot you have an unwavering loyalty to Robinson.

IanBru wrote:In defence of FHF, this is the seventh poll we've had on this particular subject. Christ knows what the other nations' supporters think of us!

IanBru wrote:As I've always said, why would we replace Robinson when we have no real idea who should replace him? Sure, there are candidates, but there is no 'Mr X' who has had us asking "That Mr X has done wonders with Team Y. Why isn't he coaching Scotland? I'm sure he be interested." (well, apart from TJ's bezzy mate Todd Blackadder).

IanBru wrote:It's not that I have 'unwavering loyalty' to Robinson (some of his selections have been a somewhat ropey) - I'm just keen to avoid hysterically blaming the coach for the failings of the players.

Can we honestly say that the players have been let down by the coach? I don't think so.

‘Scotland’s loss in Dublin has set Robinson back a distance’

By TOM ENGLISH

If IT needed any confirmation then Scotland’s plight in tournament play under Andy Robinson has shown just how irrelevant summer tours and autumn internationals are in the assessment of where a team is at.

Robinson’s side have been decent in the summer, winning a Test series in Argentina in 2010, and they’ve been good in the autumn, beating both Australia and South Africa since the Englishman took control. For a long time, we held on to these victories like they actually meant something, like they were a sign of an improving side that was ready to achieve in the championships that mattered, only they weren’t. They were meaningless.

They would only have had true significance had they been built on with respectable performances in the Six Nations and, eventually, the World Cup. This hasn’t happened. Robinson has been in charge for 20-something games but the ones that counted more than any other were the tournament matches and, of them, he has won four out of 18 or 22 per cent.

So let’s not kid ourselves that anything that might happen this summer or this autumn is an indicator of anything. A famous win in the southern hemisphere? Great. A hat-trick of wins later in the year? Marvellous. But the only time of the year that properly tests the mettle of a side is the spring and once again Scotland have been found badly wanting.

Scottish rugby fans are not hard to please. They are the least demanding supporters of any major nation in the world game, a group so ground down by the incessant mediocrity of what they have been forced to watch for so many years that small mercies make for big reactions. A close-run Test match leaves them contented even if the result goes against them. Some attractive rugby in a losing performance and they’re happy enough. This is the way of it. They don’t demand victories, but what they like to see is progress. It’s not a lot to ask for.

Witness the reaction after the French game at Murrayfield a few weeks back. Disappointment in defeat, yes. But the vibe around the stadium that evening was upbeat. Scotland had played well. They’d made a game of it. They’d scored some tries and caused some mayhem. People settled for that. It was a step forward, no question.

Up until last Saturday evening there was plenty to be hopeful about in Robinson’s team. Yes, they had suffered three defeats in a row in the championship and five in a row in total, but people opted to look at the big picture and the view wasn’t too bad. New players playing an exciting brand of rugby that was bringing some tries and some excitement to a place that was previously barren.

And now? The ineptitude of the performance in Dublin has come like a thunderbolt to those of us who have stopped short of calling for Robinson’s head in the wake of all these defeats. A week ago we were minded to forgive. We pointed out nuances in the coach’s record. There were so many narrow defeats and plenty of evidence that suggested that they were taking steps to turn some of those losses into victories.

It required a leap of faith to believe in Robinson’s regime and it was a leap that most people were prepared to make on the understanding that things would continue to improve. Personally, I’d have bet a lot of money that Scotland would have been bang in contention of winning in Dublin. Since the wretchedness of the Aviva, that faith is being challenged anew. The loss in Dublin has set Robinson back a distance. The goodwill of before has vanished. The coach is back to Square One. After an early exit from the World Cup and three consecutive failures in the Six Nations the case to retain him is now paper-thin. If Scotland were to lose to Italy on Saturday, then how could anybody argue that it’s worth persisting with him? At that point, Robinson, a proud man, might even have a job convincing himself that he’s the right man for the task.

Let’s be honest, even if Scotland come home from Italy with a wooden spoon, there will be some who will make a case for Robinson. It’ll be weak, but it’ll be a case and it will be based around the principles of it costing too much to terminate his contract and about the doubt that the SRU could appoint somebody else that would do a better job with this group of players.

The cost factor? It goes back to the old argument. Can they afford to sack him or can they afford not to sack him? If Scotland go zero from five in the Six Nations and zero from seven in all games you’d be looking for Robinson to do the decent thing and fall on his sword. No? What’s the alternative? Keep him in place and hope like hell that things change just like people have been hoping like hell for the last few years?

Could anybody else do a better job? Let’s see. If they lose on Saturday – and let us hope they don’t – then it’s two wins from 15 Six Nations matches. Could the SRU find somebody who might better that record? It wouldn’t be hard, would it?

There comes a time in the life of any team when things need to change, when the results refuse to come no matter the effort at the top. Robinson is trying hard, no doubt about it.

But if the SRU have a backbone then he should be perilously close to that point right now. The questions that Mark Dodson and the rest of the union need to ask themselves are these: “Is this good enough? And what are we prepared to do about it?”

majesticimperialman wrote:Look at it this way, if you get rid of Robinson, who would take over the job?

That is the big question?

LondonTiger wrote:Is Chalmers still persona non grata at the SRU after last summers shenanigans?

LondonTiger wrote:Is Chalmers still persona non grata at the SRU after last summers shenanigans?

21st Century Schizoid Man wrote:Tom English,

I doff my hat to you Sir. Broken ranks with the lackeys and lickspittles of journalism at The Hootsman. Wonder what Keven Ferrie's position is at The Herald - anyone seen today's (just out of bed adn having my porridge and breakfast whisky ). He was hinting yesterday that Robinson should go and that was pre the team of duds announcement.

ROBINSON MUST GO -NOW

TJ wrote:Chalmers is not ready yet I don't think.

Redpath?

Kirwen?

Mallett / Lancaster ( whichever does not get the England job)

21st Century Schizoid Man wrote:Guys,

if you argue for Bradley then there must be a better argument for Lineen - in terms of results on a shoestring, player development and scouting ?

ROBINSON MUST GO -NOW

21st Century Schizoid Man wrote:Yes but point worth making as it shows the absolute dimwittedness and stupidity of the SRU decision.

How about Mad Marc Lievremont - at least selection would be more consistent

ROBINSON MUST GO -NOW

21st Century Schizoid Man wrote:Radge Old Boy,

is your source reliable as you have my undivided attention? With resources Lineen would to a very good job. Your intelligence does not explain Lineen's body language at the press conference on Monday though ?

ROBINSON MUST GO -NOW

AsLongAsBut100ofUs wrote:

21st Century Schizoid Man wrote:Tom English,

I doff my hat to you Sir. Broken ranks with the lackeys and lickspittles of journalism at The Hootsman. Wonder what Keven Ferrie's position is at The Herald - anyone seen today's (just out of bed adn having my porridge and breakfast whisky ). He was hinting yesterday that Robinson should go and that was pre the team of duds announcement.

ROBINSON MUST GO -NOW

c21st, nothing this morning online, bud

Just when new regime had started to generate some goodwill . . .

by Kevin Ferrie, Senior Sports Writer

As John Beattie and I walked into Dublin on Saturday morning after I had guested on his radio show, there was time for slightly less guarded rugby chat than we had just enjoyed on air.

We covered a fair range of topics, among them the future of Glasgow Warriors, the job being done by Sean Lineen, their head coach, and the very different challenge that lies ahead for him now that he had at last been given the resources to have a real chance of competing with Europe's big boys, the corollary being the additional pressure that brings.

Lineen has done a magnificent job at Glasgow given the Scottish Rugby Union's feeble financing of his side in past years but some coaches, we agreed, do better when asked to over-perform in such circumstances than they might when they have to deal with a larger group of "star" performers.

John knows I have worked closely with Sean in the past and I admitted that, much as I dislike having to write about time being up for any coach or player, it would be particularly difficult when his time came.

I stressed, though, that, when it had to be done, it would be. Sean and I had actually discussed this as long as six years ago when he was appointed Glasgow's head coach.

I should, then, perhaps be grateful to those who made the astonishing decision to sack him from the job long before any such moment came, while replacing him with someone who has failed in the only full-time job he has had in professional coaching.

Gratitude was not the emotion I felt, though, on discovering that this over-achieving head coach was being replaced by the man who has been Scotland "attack" coach during a period that has brought 17 tries in 19 championship matches and four in four World Cup matches, all against Romania.

Gregor Townsend even had the audacity, when asked to justify his view of his own ability, to cite as career highlights the wins over Australia and South Africa as well as the Test series win over Argentina. In those four victories, Scotland scored a combined total of one try.

This decision, allegedly made only by men about whom few in Scottish rugby know anything – since Andy Robinson is giving it the "wisnae me" routine – has drawn a public response more akin to outraged Old Firm fans than the normally douce rugby fraternity. That should tell these people something, albeit I doubt it will.

Hailed in some quarters as some sort of flawed genius, Townsend's greatest gift, it seems, is his capacity to persuade influential men of his ability. Someone who has been around the Scottish rugby scene for much longer than the current SRU regime called me on Sunday to express his bewilderment. Knowing my opinion of the respective professional and personal qualities of Lineen and Townsend, he wondered just how angry I would be.

It would be a lie to claim there was no anger, but that was no more the principal emotion than the "gratitude" I referred to earlier on realising I will never have to consider putting the boot into one of the most respected men I have encountered in Scottish rugby.

No. What we should all really be feeling today is very different. This was a new SRU regime that had generated a great deal of goodwill through the simple expedient of understanding that rugby is actually what the business is about, rather than their predecessors' fixation with number crunching.

A sequence of sound decisions and the freeing up of some purse strings had helped to generate a mood of optimism that was even surviving the experience of watching toothless Scotland make their earliest World Cup exit before a Six Nations campaign that will culminate on Saturday with an attempt to avoid a whitewash.

One shocking decision that has outdone anything conceived by the old committee or by Gordon McKie and his merry men, has completely wrecked that, as demonstrated by the public response to Lineen's removal.

The current hierarchy's lack of experience of the Scottish scene invites the conclusion that, well intended or otherwise, this decision is based on little understanding of the game in this country and even less in the way of feeling for it.

So, no, I am not grateful and, while maybe more than a wee bit angry, my main emotion this week has been sadness at the damage done and the opportunity missed after all the years of hard work by Lineen and others to keep Scottish rugby afloat through a desperately difficult era.