Robinson 'very satisfied' with first win, but demands 15 per cent improvement

SCOTLAND'S new coach Andy Robinson declared himself "very satisfied" with his first Test match in charge after Scotland opened their Bank of Scotland Corporate Autumn Test series with a 23-10 victory over Fiji on Saturday.

He acknowledged failures in his side and stated they would need to improve by "15 per cent" to have a chance of competing on Saturday with Australia, who arrive in Edinburgh this afternoon fresh from their 20-20 draw with Ireland in Dublin yesterday. But Robinson tried to focus firmly on the positives after enjoying the rare achievement for a Scotland coach of launching his tenure with victory.

"Very, very satisfied," he said. "I thought for the first 35 minutes we were in complete control. They came back into the game and they got that opportunity just before half-time, which is a little bit frustrating because it was the first time that they looked dangerous on our line."

He admitted: "We coughed up too many balls, we made a few too many errors, gave a few too many penalties away – easy penalties to give away, which gave back the control to Fiji – and these are lessons that we've got to learn. The good thing is that we'll be able to develop those plays from a winning start."

Unlike his predecessors, Frank Hadden and Matt Williams, Robinson had experience of autumn Tests and many clashes with southern hemisphere teams to draw on. Though he was the leading coaching figure in England's 2003 World Cup success, he launched his period as official head coach in 2004 with a 70-0 drubbing of Canada. His England side then defeated South Africa, but lost in the third week of his first autumn at the helm, 21-19, to Australia.

He will have made a close study of the Wallabies' match with Ireland at Croke Park yesterday, and knows he has more limited resources at his disposal than he did when at Twickenham. There were glimpses of a new threat in the Scotland attack with slick work in the first half, and had they scored when Rory Lamont was held up close to the Fijian line while leading 16-0, the coaches may have been talking of a vibrant start to this latest chapter in Scotland's rugby story.

It did not materialise, and there were reasons within Scotland's stuttering performance for that. However, wins are crucial for building hope and confidence in a Scottish game that has lost direction in recent years, and Robinson believes this winning start will prove vital as the intensity now begins to rise.

"It is going to be a bigger test (against Australia]", he added. "All of us have got to improve by 15 per cent, me as a coach, and the players in our build- up next week in order to perform well against and beat Australia.

"But that was a very, very good performance – we've beaten a quality opposition comfortably. We're here looking at how we're going to improve, but you've got to pat the guys on the back for that performance. We should have smiles on our faces."