Scotland - give Andy Robinson some room.

I want to take a look at Scotland from a different perspective as I believe the run of results they have achieved over the last twelve months might be more indicative of player resources, finances and the reality that they are being caught by developing teams rather than just all agreeing the fault lies with Andy Robinson, his selection policies and gameplan.

Now I may be looking from the outside in, but often it is worth looking at a problem from a different perspective.

Andy Robinson has been under severe criticism and pressure over the past year for what could be described as a poor run of results for Scotland. Many have called for his sacking.

When you start looking at previous world cups, and you look at the evolution of rugby during the professional era the previous world cups where Scotland qualified for the quarter finals can be seen in perspective.

1987 - France, Romania, Scotland, Zimbabwe. France has only been a force in world rugby for a few years and Scotland was never going to lose against Zimbabwe and Romania, both being countries with small player pools and relatively under developed structures.

1991 – Scotland, Ireland, Japan, Zimbabwe. Japan and Zimbabwe was never going to challenge Scotland

1995 – France, Scotland, Tonga, Ivory coast. More of the same, no real challenges there yet.

1999 – South Africa, Scotland, Spain, Uruguay. Easy pool for Scotland

2003 – France, Scotland, USA, Japan, Fiji. Fiji started making some waves, the first world cup where Scotland were pushed hard and almost failed to make the quarter finals.

2007 – New Zealand, Scotland, Romania, Portugal, Italy. Italy their biggest threat not to qualify and once again it was a close call. The upsurge of Argentina as a serious threat came in this world cup where they beat France and Ireland.

2011 – Argentina, England, Scotland, Romania, Georgia. The inevitability of Nations such as Argentina who had significant numbers of players playing in a professional French top 14 league and would challenge for higher honours came to bare.

When you look at what has happened in world rugby in the past 16 years since professionalism, countries such as Argentina, Fiji, Samoa, Japan and to a lesser extent others have improved. Argentina may not yet have their own professional setup, but their players have been playing professional rugby for some time in France, The Pacific Island nations have players spread all over the professional leagues world wide. Japan has a professional league.

In my view the challenges Scotland face are more complex than saying the coach has the wrong selection policies, or his game plan is antiquated.

Scotland faces a real challenge of being relegated to lower tier rugby , if countries behind them keep on rapidly improving. Argentina will soon be a serious threat for the Six Nation teams once they have acclimatised to the newly formed The Rugby championship. Japan may have the most physical specimens, but they are importing a lot of players for their professional league and soon there will be players of other nations that will qualify to represent them. Romania, Georgia, Russia are all countries on the horizon. Fiji, Tonga and Samoa all have the capability to beat top nations.

This all spells disaster for Scotland if their own system or structures are not revamped to create more player depth and talent. No matter who the coach may be or the game plan, Scotland has a real problem and I don’t believe the short term solution is to get rid of the coach. Would any other coach really do better?

Scotland is being caught by a number of countries and that is nothing to do with Andy Robinson

I forgot to add.

Some of their results like the 1 point loss to Argentina, a 4 and 7 point loss to england and a 6 point loos to France, have been tough uncompromising close losses.

The mere fact that Scotland has been able to compete against these nations show that it is not too late, and things could still be turned around.

The reason Scotland were in a group with argentina and England was they had dropped out of the top 8 so were 3 round seeds - becuase of poor results the year before.

the results speak for themselves - 4 wins in competitive games in 3 years - two against Georgia and Romania.

from 6th to 12 in the world rankings

But most importantly a team that is less than the sum of its parts playing heads down with low morale. Scotland teams always used to be more than the sum of their parts.

Robinson failed with England and failed again with Scotland

I agree its not too late and could be turned round - but Robinson has had 3 years and it gets worse not better under him

biltong, an interesting read, thanks - you are right, it is always good to get the outside perspective. A couple of thoughts which immediately strike me:

1. Scotland has always had far fewer players than other nations - yet in the past, that is something that we thrived upon! Take the Borders as an example - population wise it constitutes 1 in every 400 Scot, yet their contribution to the Scottish rugby team over the years is roughly 1 in every 6 or so. Previously we have had results that belied our rightful status in world rugby, now we have results that are worse than that.

2. Are the structures in Scotland that much worse than in other Tier 1 and 2 nations? Perhaps yes, in the case of some countries, NZ and RSA for two, but in comparison to Australia, say, there is no reason that Scotland is punching so far below its weight imo. Our transition to professionalism was admittedly chaotic, followed by a long period of financial shambles, then by sever belt tightening for another handful of years, but relative to the situations in Romania or Georgia, Scotland has at its disposal far greater resources. Have a read of the Bob Carruthers article in the Club section - while I don't agree with everything he has to say on Scottish rugby, his comments regarding the way in which we've not made the smartest use of resources are spot on.

Do I honestly believe that another coach could do better? Absolutely - Robinson has made mistake after mistake in terms of selection, bench utilisation, playing players out of positions, ignoring in form players, relegating his captain in the middle of a world cup, etc. We desparately needed to win the first game of the 6Ns campaign against England to get some momentum going - in theory, England were with a new, inexperienced coach, had onyl just come together, etc., and he went for a shockingly conservative team selection and game plan that was designed to limit the likelihood of loss. A bold coach would have gone for the jugular.

Robinson asked to be judged on his results and I judge him incapable.

Biltongbek if quarter final qualification is as easy as you make out then why is it only 5 teams which have made the quarters each time?

I think Andy Robinson is lucky to keep his job. You need to win games - his Scotland team have failed miserably in that regard. Failing to qualify for the WC quarter finals and wooden spoon in the 6 nations isn't good enough.

Saying it's ok because Scotland have little resources compared to their rivals isn't a good enough excuse. They have some quality players that can match their rivals. They should have done better.

I think key injuries have stopped Scotland winning 2-3 games this year - Keeping Robinson is the right decision IMO - With Kelly Brown leading and a first choice selection they would have beaten England, Italy and France IMO - They have little strength in depth but at full strength they are a match for anyone - Remember is was 3-3 half-time v Wales in Cardiff and they lead France well into the 2nd half. They are not too far away and need some continuinty here.

Beschocked, For a top 8 nation getting into the Qf was easy. There are now more teams capable of getting to the Qf and therefor the mod range teams are in danger of not getting there.

When you look back 15 years the teams looked like this.

New Zealand
SA
Australia
England
France
Ireland
Wales
Scotland

Those 8 teams weren't challenged by any others for a hundred years.

Now you have teams such as Argentina, Italy, Samoa who can challenge these teams.

biltongbek wrote:Beschocked, For a top 8 nation getting into the Qf was easy. There are now more teams capable of getting to the Qf and therefor the mod range teams are in danger of not getting there.

When you look back 15 years the teams looked like this.

New Zealand
SA
Australia
England
France
Ireland
Wales
Scotland

Those 8 teams weren't challenged by any others for a hundred years.

Now you have teams such as Argentina, Italy, Samoa who can challenge these teams.

You forget that Scotland were regularly duffed up by Romania on their turf back in the days of communism, biltong

A question.

From what I can find scotland has a premier ship with 36 clubs
They then have a nation wide league with another 36 clubs
and then 85 clubs in regional leagues, plus then the lower divisions.


Why do they only have 2 professional clubs?

AsLongAsBut100ofUs wrote:

biltongbek wrote:Beschocked, For a top 8 nation getting into the Qf was easy. There are now more teams capable of getting to the Qf and therefor the mod range teams are in danger of not getting there.

When you look back 15 years the teams looked like this.

New Zealand
SA
Australia
England
France
Ireland
Wales
Scotland

Those 8 teams weren't challenged by any others for a hundred years.

Now you have teams such as Argentina, Italy, Samoa who can challenge these teams.

You forget that Scotland were regularly duffed up by Romania on their turf back in the days of communism, biltong

Sure I didn't check records or stats on these, but this was the way it was percieved in those days.

Great post Biltong. I respect your input and your opinion, even though I think it's wrong.

How would you feel though if the Boks coach thought, I think we should play Victor Matfield at 6.

Or lets try Brian Habana at 12?

Or lets persever with a woefully out of form predictable 10 for the opening match against England in the 6N.

Scotland may struggle for players but the matches are lost before we even get on the pitch because the best players are watching from the stands.

I seriously doubt you would be happy.

Why do they only have 2 professional clubs?

Because they lack the quality to sustain more than 2 professional clubs and there is little interest and sponsorship.

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:Great post Biltong. I respect your input and your opinion, even though I think it's wrong.

How would you feel though if the Boks coach thought, I think we should play Victor Matfield at 6.

Or lets try Brian Habana at 12?

Or lets persever with a woefully out of form predictable 10 for the opening match against England in the 6N.

Scotland may struggle for players but the matches are lost before we even get on the pitch because the best players are watching from the stands.

I seriously doubt you would be happy.

rugger, we have had many of these issues over the past 4 years. PDV was not the most astute coach. Our results prove that.I am trying to show that andy robinson isn't the only culprit in this equation.

Biltongbek if that's the case why have Ireland and Wales failed to qualify for the quarter finals on occasions? I believe Wales have failed 3 times, Ireland 2 times.

Scotland have now lost their proud record of reaching the quarter finals each time because of Robinson.

Rubyguby you can use the if and buts for every team.

Beschocked for the same reasons.

Teams are improvng as structures improve. Ireland and Wales have both instituted a regional system which is providing them with the strucutre and depth to remain in the top 8.

I am not knocking scotland, I am merely suggesting that in my opinion, Scotland are being caught by other nations and if they don't look at the systems and structures these other countries will not only catch them but overtake them.

Biltongbek my point is that with the players at Scotland's disposal they should have done better in the RWC and 6 nations.

Unceremoniously dumped out of the world cup when you say there is little competition for quarter final places and wooden spoon simply is not good enough.

Scotland might not have the best system in place or the best players but they shouldn't be as low in the rankings as they are.

Wales have failed to qualify as the RWC has largely coincided with their worse period in welsh rugby history whereby most of the top players were lost to RL - In the first RWC Wales finished 3rd and then there were 15 bleak years where instead of having a pivot of Quinnell, Jiffy Gibbs and Bateman we had virtually unknows plus Boobyer - We could not compete - Only in the past few years have we managed to get back near to where we were and it looks like we are now back competing.

biltongbek wrote:Beschocked for the same reasons.

Teams are improvng as structures improve. Ireland and Wales have both instituted a regional system which is providing them with the strucutre and depth to remain in the top 8.

I am not knocking scotland, I am merely suggesting that in my opinion, Scotland are being caught by other nations and if they don't look at the systems and structures these other countries will not only catch them but overtake them.

Our systems could improve no doubt. But look at the way Glasgow have been playing in the Pro12 and Edinburgh in the HC, our clubs are performing well. Our idiot of a coach has steadfastly refused to pick the best/form players and has stuck to his "old Favourites" who have let Scotland down since he took charge.

At my job if I failed to meet any targets I set myself over the course of 3 years I would expect to be fired. He is no exception.

I have heard how close we are for the last 5 years, Haddock fed us this nonsense long before Robinson. He is not good enough to coach Scotland.

OK, I accept that you guys still feel Andy robinson is the current problem, but how do you suggest the structure in scotland is improved.

The problem with 2 professional teams is you aren't going to create a lot of dpth and injuries can seriously hamper any progress.

Even if Robinson were replaced, the next coach might improve on game plan and selection.

do you think that would be enough?

I would accpet short term it could make a difference but long term no.

A number of Scottish players ply their trade outside of Scotland which I think is a good thing for scottish rugby - Therefore there is room to expand the pool of players. I actually like the fact that some of the welsh players are getting experience in France and England as those countrys pay for their development which means others get chances at the Regions.

Good read Biltong,

The issue of being under-capitalised and poorly resourced is a valid one. The SRU have been in a poor financial state for a long time now and the number of players (at all levels) is the lowest in the 6N.

Where the frustration with Andy Robinson builds from is the fact that these Scottish players are getting beaten at the international level by players they can beat at club level. Glasgow warriors are currently sitting in a play-off position in the Pro12 (also coming 2nd in their HC group) and Edinburgh topped their group and progressed to the next stage in the Heineken cup. Over the same period, Scotland have suffered their worst RWC display and been white washed at the 6N. Its hard to reconcile these two observations if the head coach is not at fault somewhere.

Ultimately with only 2 pro teams, it is fairly easy to reach consensus on what the national team should look like, where you have between 6 to 12 teams there is more scope for interpretation and opinion. With 2 teams and a handful of exiles, the Scotland team almost picks itself. This is why selection has been such a hot topic recently. The Scotland fans seem to be one step ahead of AR, when he is the professional and the one who is paid to be one step ahead of everyone else.

While I tend to stay clear of the "sack him" debate, as I don't really think Scotland can sack their way to wins, it is clear that AR needs to make better use of the scant resources Scotland has. As you say, these resources are now being matched by other countries, therefore it is imperative the the SRU improve them and the Head Coach make the best use of them. Thats why both are coming under heavy criticism - and quite rightly.

Long term...... ok start out with a goal of a third pro team made out of youngsters and international fringe players (similar to Connaught) in Ireland, probably based in Aberdeen/Inverness area (ground Sharing with Aberdeen footy and Cally thistle) set a target of having this in motion by about 3-4 years. In this time try to draw some of the more experienced/older exiles to form the backbone of the team and be mentors to some of the younger guys.

6-8 years down the line try and revive the borders pro club, and encourage the die hard borders club fans (Hawick/Gala/Kelso/Melrose) that it's ok to support both your club and the district pro team.

Basicly It's a plan to try and bring the Scottish district system back with 4 catchment areas. Highland, East, West and Borders, bring in the best the club teams have to offer into the pro arena to see if they can handle it.

A possible Celtic World Cup 15-20 years down the line would also help.

Primarily though, market the game to the Scottish public who are sick of Old Firm domminence in football. Football fans in Scotland are pretty disgruntled at the moment (I confess I am only using my dad and brother in law as an example). These are the people to target to try and raise interest in rugby.

Another opportuity for a Scots team is London Scottish - playingin the English leagues.

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:Long term...... ok start out with a goal of a third pro team made out of youngsters and international fringe players (similar to Connaught) in Ireland, probably based in Aberdeen/Inverness area (ground Sharing with Aberdeen footy and Cally thistle) set a target of having this in motion by about 3-4 years. In this time try to draw some of the more experienced/older exiles to form the backbone of the team and be mentors to some of the younger guys.

6-8 years down the line try and revive the borders pro club, and encourage the die hard borders club fans (Hawick/Gala/Kelso/Melrose) that it's ok to support both your club and the district pro team.

Basicly It's a plan to try and bring the Scottish district system back with 4 catchment areas. Highland, East, West and Borders, bring in the best the club teams have to offer into the pro arena to see if they can handle it.

A possible Celtic World Cup 15-20 years down the line would also help.

Primarily though, market the game to the Scottish public who are sick of Old Firm domminence in football. Football fans in Scotland are pretty disgruntled at the moment (I confess I am only using my dad and brother in law as an example). These are the people to target to try and raise interest in rugby.

Rugger, that sounds like a logical and viable option to me.

You might be attracting a lot of Rangers fans soon

You can split it into the short term problem (A national side with quality players available but who are either not being selected or are underperforming) and the longer term problem of low participation and only 2 professional sides.

The short term problem is, in my view, at least partly down to Andy Robinson although the players themselves often seem to lack the killer instinct to put teams away when they have the chance. But they are not helped by poor selection.

The longer term problem is because too few people in Scotland are seriously interested in rugby. This impacts upon the player pool to select from, and the income from sponsors and tv companies which would be necessary to sustain more professional sides. There are a few reasons for this: We are not a very sporty country in general; the overwhelmingly most popular sport is football and even then most people only watch and don't participate, so we're rubbish at that too; rugby is seen as a sport for posh boys which many ordinary blokes wouldn't be seen dead playing.

These are difficult things to change, especially in a country where people are very set in their ways and often unwilling to give new things a go. I don't think we can hope to get people to stop watching football and move to rugby, especially not with a holier than thou attitude about financial mismanagement or behaviour of players/fans. But we need to change rugby's image, get people to realise they can enjoy more than just one sport, getting it into more schools would help.

But I also think a bit of short-term success for the national side would go a long way to getting people interested.

Nice post Mr Mustard.

Short term success is always very important, I remember a poll was done in Oz just after they had some success and rugby union climbed to number 4 in popularity over there, where usually it struggles to stay in the top ten most popular.

Long Term succes is another matter. Short term success starts with picking the best players. Robinson has failed to do that and hence I have trumpeted for his dismisal.

He has kept his job despite leading us to our worst ever place in the world rankings, our first failure to qualify from our pool at the RWC and only our 2nd white wash in the 6N for 27 years.

biltongbek wrote:A question.

From what I can find scotland has a premier ship with 36 clubs
They then have a nation wide league with another 36 clubs
and then 85 clubs in regional leagues, plus then the lower divisions.


Why do they only have 2 professional clubs?

Always good to read an outsiders view and agree with everything you've said.

Problems with Scottish Rugby - majority of the top level clubs are either based in Edinburgh or the Borders. And most don't think about whats happening outside their own clubhouse and don't like change. Example - areas like Lanarkshire which has 10% of the Scottish population has only 11 clubs and only two of those clubs are in the 2nd level league (one of them draws players from Edinburgh & Borders). You can also look at the City of Glasgow which also has 10% of the population - 8 clubs.

Good work is done outwith the traditional regions by the likes of Stirling County and Ayr.

Big change is needed in domestic rugby but nothings going to change as it "aye been" and designing by committee which never works.

Edinburgh Rugby could be a successful pro team, the SRU have increased budgets so hopefully we'll start to see them climb the league and get to the QF of the Heineken Cup more often. There's a large rugby population here - it just needs to be awoken.

Back in the last days of the amateur era we were one of the strongest teams in the world... especially at the beginning of the 90s.

Ok so SA were not there but in 1990 we took NZ all the way in a 2 match series in NZ and were leading the final test for much of the match only to lose by 3 points... this was against the current world champs at the time. Very few teams ever do that to NZ.. let alone beat them... think the last was France in 94 which beat a NZ team in transition (albeit still strong).

Since then, progressively worse players have replaced those superior to them.
We've been on a downward spiral since.

Its could be down to finances... our union has always been srapped for cash.
Actual player numbers.... we have the lowest of all the 6N teams... less apples to pick from the tree so to speak.

The last 10 years we flooded our team with ancestral or residency players... preventing the actual problem coming sooner.

Same thing happened in Football, near all sports in fact.

Its a society thing... unfortunately the kids growing up today don't play as much sport as they used to, and in less numbers too. Its the playstation generation.
Other countries will have been affected as well but I think we have suffered significantly.

As a nation sport is not a massive thing for kids, not as much as it used to.

I don't live in Scotland anymore and haven't for a few years... I don't know how much time kids get at school, the opportunities they get etc but speaking to relatives etc its not the same as it used to be.

Personally I reckon as a small country we should always concentrate on sports like rugby with only 16 or so serious countries playing.
If we were to concentrate on particular sports we could get a reasonable level of success.... rather than say, lets put most into football which kids naturally play because on playgrounds its cheap and safe.

We will never be big in football again... but we could in a sport like rugby.

In terms of Robinson - don't expect miracles when you have little to work with.

Rugby is always built around the flyhalf, always. Good flyhalf and an ok set of forwards and you'll always be competitive.

Without a world class flyhalf since 2000 we've struggled.

A very good, WUM and bombast free post.

Biltong - always an entertaining read from you.

To distil the thoughts of a number of the lads still further:

1. I agree (and Scotland fans know) that the broader problem is player numbers and the country's attitude to the sport in general. This has been discussed in a number of fora and a number of solutions do present themselves if only the new SRU shows itself to have the bravery and foresight to implement them.

Have a look at our favourite columnist here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/johnbeattie/2012/03/scotland_need_a_long-term_plan.html

2. The point with Robinson is NOT that the team are into the losing habit. Scottish fans are not that fickle when it comes to pegging everything on whether we win or lose. We've lived through Matt Williams and Franklyn Haddock. We are made of stern stuff and have learned to enjoy the other facets of Scotland's game rather than merely that "winning" stuff that we've heard so much about.

3. The problems with Robinson are really:

(a) he does not select players in accordance with their current club form;

(b) he appears to be too conservative about playing young players who do not currently have a large number of international caps - this seems to be a universal principle applied rather than the consideration of players' abilities and temperaments on an individual basis. The young players that shone in the 6N were those who were forced on the side through injury rather than through intentional coaching selection;

(c) he has the propensity to want to get his 'favourites' on the field - regardless of whether this means he has to play them out of position - John Barclay at 6 is only one of the many examples in recent years;

(d) although he denies it, he appears to operate using substitutes on the basis of a blanket system of bringing them on according to a pre-ordained time in the match, regardless of how well they are playing;

(e) he constantly changes key positions, therefore giving the impression he is unaware of his preferred team - the statistic of not choosing the same halfback combination for 7 or 8 straight games in succession in Lievremont-esque in its skittishness and Jim Hamilton went on the record to a national paper discussing how unsettling this was for the team;

(f) he persists in selecting players whose skillsets are too limited for the task that he has chosen them for and more importantly who are also too old, too specialist or too blunt for them to have any possibility of improving their skillset;

(g) he does not appear to be able to use the key strengths from the two Scots professional sides - rather, he has managed to make a shotgun marriage of the weakest elements of both (Edinburgh's collander-like defence and Glasgow's lumpenness);

(h) he has stayed faithful to members of a coaching staff who plainly and nakedly do not have the skills to coach at international level (not mentioning any Toonies, sorry, 'people', I meant 'people').

4. The point is not that Scotland is losing - it's the fact that the coach is not presenting the best version of the Scotland team.

And there isn't actually anywhere to place the blame for that, other than at Robinson's door.

Of course AR doesn't go onto the pitch and make De Luca drop yet another pass.

But if you aren't part of the overall solution, then you're sure as shoitey shoite part of the problem.

AR has had long enough to sort this out. Rugby works in four year cycles and we need a change.

The key fact is that we're stuck with him now. Hopefully he can take on board the plethora of mistakes he's made a learn from them.

Hi Biltong,

It's an interesting read. I made a comment after the 6Ns that i thought Scotland shouldn't sack Robinson because they'd struggle to find a better forwards coach - and i still believe Scotland's rucking and ball retention under him has come on leaps and bounds. I argued that the simple fact was that they did not have enough top level players and i largely stand by that.

However, it was pointed out to me, and i had to concede, that his selection of players is atrocious. Something i believe a number of posters have highlighted. I have to agree, for both England and Scotland he has significantly harmed his team's chances by playing out of form, out of position or over the hill players

The reason we keep losing is that we don't have enough players who are playing regularly to cover enough for off form players and injuries without going into the younger players (which Robinson won't do).
What we need is a third and possibly fourth team which will allow us to play more players more often; the lack of a third team isn't due to lack of quality players it is down to lack of money in the SRU and their desperation not to relinquish control of the pro teams. Also very few of our players play regularly in the final stages of the HC in contrast to the other top European teams due to the fact we cannot afford the top southern hemisphere players due to lack of funds or players space.

I'd suggest allowing private clubs to set up in the north and Aberdeen or Inverness (not swapping between but based in one - if they swapped around it wouldn't allow a regular player base to form) and selling off part of Edinburgh and Glasgow. Then buy some top class southern hemisphere players to push the teams in to the latter stages of european tournaments so our best regularly play other countries' best.

I think the 3rd region is a red herring. It's a nice to have, but not an essential.

There absolutely are enough players for Robinson to choose from, they just have to be properly selected and they need a game plan to suit their talents. Get that right and we'd be winning more games.

I also think the pool of talent is growing as well. Consider the number of exiled players (who are going to top English and French clubs) and the number of young talented players breaking through. It's actually a very positive picture, and the two Pro Sides are really starting to click. Yes, there are some depth issues at Edinburgh, but hopefully another season will see some new talent (like Gilchrist and Scott) coming through, and the signing of Nel looks like a really good one.

All the bad stuff seems to happy at the international level at the moment. That's why it's so bizarre that Robinson and Townsend seem to have been handpicked by the SRU for special treatment.

I am too depressed to answer fully - might get out of the slump in due course - but at the moment - sigh