Scotland - Australia: In the cold light of day

Many had predicted that yesterday's match was the NH's best chance of securing a win in the series of matches with SANZAR rivals. Still Scotland had to go out and win the match. That they did so with such resolute defence is a great credit to the players.

BUT

This result probably secures Andy Robinson in the post for a fair bit longer. Is this a price worth paying?



Scotland under AR vs Tier 1 Countries:

Played 26
Won 9
Tries 17
Tryless matches 15

Andy Robinson should have gone after the 6N's. But who would have come in instead? I can't see many coaches wanting the post frankly.

We have played 30 Tests under Andy Robinson and won 13 of them and drawn 1. Not outstanding results by any means, but not that bad considering we are realistically a 5th-10th type ranked team.

My big issue is our results when it really matters, in the WC and 6 Nations is much worse than the overall picture. His competitive record shows 4 wins in 19 and in the 6 Nations, only 2 wins in 15!

yappysnap wrote:Andy Robinson should have gone after the 6N's. But who would have come in instead? I can't see many coaches wanting the post frankly.

I think this 6 Nations will be his last unless results improve. If his job became available, there would be lots of interest.

Just as a reference, what are the records of the two coaches who went before Andy Robinson?

Dorothy_Mantooth wrote:We have played 30 Tests under Andy Robinson and won 13 of them and drawn 1. Not outstanding results by any means, but not that bad considering we are realistically a 5th-10th type ranked team.

My big issue is our results when it really matters, in the WC and 6 Nations is much worse than the overall picture. His competitive record shows 4 wins in 19 and in the 6 Nations, only 2 wins in 15!

And two of those wins were against Georgia and Romania.

On first glance Frank Hadden's results are not great 15 wins from 40 matches. (68 tries).

However he did win a higher proportion of 6Ns and WC matches.

I am absolutely delighted we got the win, and am massively proud of the guys and relieved that they manged to win finally (for their own sanity) but don't think it is a start of a glorious new chapter for Scottish rugby, just yet.

We have had some big wins over SH teams in Robinson's reign - Australia twice and South Africa. A key component of those wins however, was that we didn't have much ball in either of them - and it was pishin doon!

We are very good at backs to the wall defence, grinding out wins based on passion and kicking our way to glory. What we are not good at is having lots of possession and needing to attack and score tries to win the game.

I am confident this will come with the new generation of players, but until I see regular performances where we show an all round performance (good defence and attack) I think we're going to have to carry on being plucky losers that occasionally take a big scalp.

As for the Robinson - lets see how he gets on with the new coaching team and over the next few games. At least one more win this summer, at least one win in the Autumn and a good 6N and he'll get the job til the world cup.

If any of those things don't happen then I think he'll have to go.

RDW, you say at least one more win this summer but who are you expecting to lose to now?

Isn't it Fiji and Samoa that you're playing? Both of which should be wins for you guys.

We really should beat Fiji, who apparently don't have the strongest squad just now and struggled past Japan.

I am however worried about Samoa- I think they have a very strong team and will be desperate to win the game in their home country.

We really should beat both (and I think we will if we play well) but it definitely isn't a foregone conclusion.

Yes they were against two smaller nations, but had we lost them I am sure Robbo's detractors would have included them as losses in their review of his reign, so I am including them as wins!!

As I said, our results when it matters are nowhere near good enough. Considering we have Italy at home this 6 Nations and for once early enough in the competition that an early win might build confidence, then if we don't win at least 2 games then it may be time to move on.

I agree with RDW on the lead up-to the 6 Nations, 2 more wins are required from our remaining 5 matches. Though I don't see him nor should he be removed before the 6 Nations, barring any unforeseen disasters.

I haven't forgotten how terrible we have been in the 6N and in the RWC, this win has papered over some of the cracks in Andy Robinson's reign.

Failure to get 3 wins in the 6N and I think he should be shown the door.

I am wondering whether another coach will be able to get that much more out of the players avaiable.

I don't mean this negatively, but Scotland has two professional squads, the fact that they can still on occassion win against a top three nations is brilliant, perhaps his selections at times are controversial, but then which coach doesn't have controversy in selections?

Bilt, in the 6N no one on the plannet would have picked Dan Parks for the opener against England based on the club form of him and the other 2 contenders (Weir & Laidlaw).

Sure there are controversial decisions. That one was controversial and stupid though. These clangers are regular though, Hines at 6 is another, picking 2 captains for the National squad is another.

His selections and decisions are often baffling.

I understand, I don't see your clubs play so can't comment with any knowledge on his selections.

But I have watched the last 10 or so tests that scotland have played, and in my view there isn't much wrong with their tactics or game plan, it has been the individual decision making processes and unforced erros that have cost them a good number of games, unfortunately that cannot be coached.

ARs plan with Scotland in the last couple of years seems to be to select a strong defensive unit that will play a structured game and not concede too many points.

Problem is that they score so few tries (tryless in 15 of 26 matches against Tier 1 sides, 16 of all 30 that he has been in charge) that if a team can score a try against them, they can struggle to get the field position needed to score enough penalties to win.

We shall see how the team develops, but if they continue to score less than a try per game they will continue to struggle to put together a series of wins.

I am pretty confident that the Scotland team is going to be pretty successful over the next few years. There is a high calibre of young player coming through now that Scotland hasn't had for many a year. Over the next few years there will be a lot of depth to key positions as well so the struggles we have had will start to disapear.
It isn't ideal that we only have 2 pro teams, ideally we would have 3 as there is definitely the talent to have a 3rd team.
The scotland backs have been the problem over the past decade but with the new breed coming through I can see a back division being in place for the 2015 world cup being like this
9 laidlaw 10 weir 11 visser 12 scott 13 bennett 14 Brown 15 Hogg
which I think will be a pretty exciting back line.

I think the nail has been hit squarly on the head earlier. Robinson hasn't really had massive amounts of quality to pick from BUT the pool is starting to look a little deeper now with some genuine quality coming through. I for one would definately chuckle at the irony if after sticking it out through the barren years, he ends up getting the boot just as the likes of Visser, Denton, Grey and Hogg start maturing into genuine international quality players/lions.....

Who would've thought on a summer tour that Scotland would have been able to take their summer weather with them to Australia. Definitely an advantage. Sadly there's no chance of that in Fiji and Samoa. Also, those teams are usually seen travelling to other places. You don't get to see them in too many home games so don't discount the home advantage factor.

There do seem to be a few more options notably in the backs for Scotland. Many criticised Robinson´s selections and it seemed rightly so. But then again the pool of talent available seems larger now. Will that lead to a more varied game plan. The win yesterday only showed us what we already know. Scotland are not to be underestimated in the wet. If Scotland put in an attacking display and score some tries then Robinson's position will be made a lot more secure. So far nothing really has changed in terms of his position.

In the last 12 years the only European team Fiji have faced at home has been Italy (twice). They won both.

Last time they played a Home Nations team at home was Scotland in 1998.

Fiji won 51-26 against what looks to have been a half strength Scottish team:

http://www.espnscrum.com/scrum/rugby/match/23406.html


Samoa also have very few homa matches agains 6N opposition - but did lose to Ireland in 2004

I think it's important we don't underestimate the challenge of playing Fiji and Samoa at home.

The conditions will be hot, humid and quite unlike anything the Scottish players have faced before. The opposition will attack in unconventional ways and look to deconstruct the game as much as possible. We will need to be bold and spontaneous in our approach to these games, hit hard on the advantage line and make sure we take full advantage of ill-discipline on their side (and there will no doubt be the odd dodgy tackle flying in).

Beating both Fiji and Samoa on their own patch would be a fine achievement.

funnyExiledScot wrote:

Beating both Fiji and Samoa on their own patch would be a fine achievement.

Agreed - take 3 from 3 from this tour and I'd rank it is a more significant achievement than the series win over Argentina, which was fantastic in itself.

Looking forward to the Fiji and Samoa games, in an age of seeing the AB's every season and watching the same top teams over and over again there's some thing a little bit more fantastical about traveling to these countries and playing in their environs.

I agree with that. Scotland have done a very good job so far of making light of the snub we took from New Zealand, Australia and South Africa not wanting to play a test series against us.

The Fiji and Samoa games will be wonderful occasions for rugby on those islands and be a great experience for our young players. Beating Australia at home will hopefully also demonstrate to the big three that we are not a spent force or a fallen rugby nation, just one that has been slow to adapt to professionalism and that has gone through a tough decade (much like Ireland and Wales in the 90's). There are some young and talented players coming through the Scottish system, and hopefully in the future one of the big three will want a series against us again.