Scottish Rugby, slow on the uptake?

Former Scotland players Kenny Logan and Andy Nicol believe Andy Robinson should remain in charge despite Scotland's dismal Six Nations campaign.

Italy brushed the Scots aside in Rome on Saturday, meaning Robinson's winless team had a Wooden Spoon to add to their luggage for the flight home.
Italy should never brush us aside, no disrespect to Italy but no team should be brushing us aside. Woeful performance from Scotland where we made no clean breaks inside the Italian 22.

"I think he is the man to get us back on the road again," said Logan.
Tosh

And Nicol told BBC BBC Scotland: "I hope he is there to see some of the good work come to fruition."
I don't.

Robinson said in the immediate aftermath of the 13-6 defeat at the Stadio Olimpico that he felt he could take Scotland further.
Andy Robinson says a lot of things, but the time for talking is over and I am sick of him trying desperatly to tell us he can take us forward. You can't all the while you are playing a winger who can't pass and a centre who won't pass at 12.

But to have finished the campaign without a point, creating an unenviable record of seven consecutive defeats when the World Cup losses to Argentina and England are added, will have stung the head coach.

He will reflect on the Six Nations campaign with Scottish Rugby's chief executive Mark Dodson and Ian McLauchlan, the president, before making any announcement on his future.

"If you speak to the players there is not a bad word said about him," argued Logan, a Scotland player for more than a decade.
Try speaking to the fans who have had to endure this garbage for the RWC and this diabolical 6N, and remember they are the ones who pay their wages!



Andy Nicol
Former Scotland captain
"I don't think we should be sacking the coach. He deserves to be there longer but he is under more pressure now."
He has done nothing to merit staying on.

For Logan, the depressing aspect for Scotland fans is that the two most recent matches, against Ireland and Italy, suggested the team, far from making progress, was going backwards.

"I thought we were just one win away from being a good team again," he said.
"The England game was pretty positive, then there was Wales and France .
"It went downhill pretty rapidly after that.
"Ireland is the one where we drifted back to where we were a couple of years ago.
"The pleasing thing at the start of the tournament was within the last five minutes of a game we were a try away from winning.
"At the end of the Six Nations we are back to where we were, two or three tries away from winning games.
"I thought we had sorted that."

With Edinburgh performing well in the Heineken Cup and Sean Lineen having led Glasgow to a chance of the RaboDirect Pro12 play-offs, there was an air of optimism surrounding Scotland on the eve of this year's Six Nations.
The air of optimism was shattered the moment Dan Parks was press ganged out of retirement instead of giving an oppertunity to one of the young fly halfs responsible for Edinburgh and Glasgow's good results.

"It started well, it promised a lot and it delivered very little," said former Scotland captain Nicol of the Six Nations whitewash.
See Reasons above, but none of the Scottish pundits had the balls to say picking Dan Parks was a mistake, as I said in the title, are all our pundits dense or slow on the uptake?

"In the Italy game, where Scotland had to throw everything at it, they never fired a shot.

"There wasn't the same ambition as there had been in the games against Wales and France.

"It was hugely disappointing. Seven defeats is a bad run for any professional coach in any sport to go through, but I still think Andy Robinson is the right coach for Scotland."
Under what logic? How can you say it's a bad run and still say he is right fr Scotland?

Nicol, now a rugby TV pundit, pointed to the emergence of full-back Stuart Hogg, plus Dave Denton and Ross Rennie as promising signs for the future.

Of Hogg, he said: "The game has not gone for him in the last two games and without him Scotland had no creative flair.
He only got his chance due to injury forcing Robinson's hand!

"You can't let a 19-year-old be the one source of inspiration in the team.

"I have no issue with the conveyor belt of talent coming through but I think a radical change is required now."
Radical change was needed when we only scored 4 tries in the RWC!

Indeed, changes will have been made before the autumn Tests against New Zealand, South Africa and Tonga.

Robinson has replaced defence coach Graham Steadman with Matt Taylor, and Australian Scott Johnson will come in as his assistant head coach, with Gregor Townsend moving to Glasgow Warriors.
Toonie at he Warriors is another travesty that I'll avoid commenting on, funny how Logan and Nicol had nothing to comment on the matter.

This is normally the cheery bit, but to place Scottish rugby's parlous state into full perspective and to point out just what Dodson and his executives should be trying to address, if the national team do not win either of their next two matches they will drop out of the world's top 12.

That, in turn, would almost certainly mean that, with matches against the world's top two, New Zealand and South Africa, to come in the autumn, Scotland would drop into the fourth tier of seeds when the draw for the next World Cup is made at the end of this year.

AsLongAsBut100ofUs wrote:I am reliably informed that this is true:

This is normally the cheery bit, but to place Scottish rugby's parlous state into full perspective and to point out just what Dodson and his executives should be trying to address, if the national team do not win either of their next two matches they will drop out of the world's top 12.

That, in turn, would almost certainly mean that, with matches against the world's top two, New Zealand and South Africa, to come in the autumn, Scotland would drop into the fourth tier of seeds when the draw for the next World Cup is made at the end of this year.

Robinson, what have you done?

geoff999rugby wrote:

AsLongAsBut100ofUs wrote:I am reliably informed that this is true:

This is normally the cheery bit, but to place Scottish rugby's parlous state into full perspective and to point out just what Dodson and his executives should be trying to address, if the national team do not win either of their next two matches they will drop out of the world's top 12.

That, in turn, would almost certainly mean that, with matches against the world's top two, New Zealand and South Africa, to come in the autumn, Scotland would drop into the fourth tier of seeds when the draw for the next World Cup is made at the end of this year.

Robinson, what have you done?

You are realiable misinformed on 2 counts.

1 - Scotlands rating is so low compared to those 2 teams that it cannot go down at all if if you are stuffed by New Zealand and only a very small amount if you loose at home to SA

2 - and more importantly there are only 3 seeded groups (for those team already qualified). Scotland cant go any lower than 3rd seed.

CaleyShaun wrote:Well, i still say he must go and i don't buy "the players are letting us down" crap either, these players don't make as many mistakes at their clubs or drop as many balls as they do for Scotland so why are they making these errors for their Country yet not for their clubs, there has to be an explanation.