Andy Robinson hints at bright future after Frank Hadden era peters out

Published on Tuesday 29 December 2009 21:52

SCOTTISH rugby is moving into 2010 with renewed heart … but wait, we said that of 2009.

• A happy Scotland coach Andy Robinson after scotland defeated Australia 9-8. Picture: Ian Rutherford

Scottish rugby was in a positive frame of mind a year ago after scrummaging New Zealand off the park and running South Africa close, so developing a pack confident it could stand tall with the best in the world. They did not win those Test matches ultimately, and that kept one foot on the ground at least, but with England and France struggling, Wales not the Grand Slammists they were and Ireland looking aged, surely it was time for Scotland to banish the blues?

The short answer was 'no, think again, Scotland'. Just as a rugby team evolves around more than merely the stand-off, but the controller wearing the No10 jersey invariably attracts most scrutiny, so the head coach is far from alone in determining how his side performs yet is the man to take the greatest flak when it all goes pear-shaped.

It comes with the position and so the sight of Frank Hadden shuffling more uncomfortably than ever with the attention and criticism began to reveal in the former Edinburgh and Scotland age-grade coach a naivety in international rugby that was to haunt him in his final months as he ran out of avenues to turn and agreed to step down in May.

In terms of results, Hadden finished with 16 wins from 41 Test matches, a success ratio of 39 percent, and with Scotland one place further down the rankings from when he took over. It was not a whole lot worse than some might have predicted of a Scotland side, but he joined Ian McGeechan and Matt Williams nonetheless in completing the worst decade of achievement by a Scotland team since international rugby began.

And yet, there was much good and important work achieved in Hadden's four years as Scotland coach. God only knows where the team might have been had Williams continued, his inability to grasp what made Scottish players tick, what systems fitted Scottish teams and how the Scottish public felt about their rugby only slipping further into oblivion by the time he had finished in 2005, with the number of players unwilling to play for him nearing double figures.

Hadden was a breath of fresh air, the antithesis of Williams and the right man at that time to restore faith and belief in Scottish players. That manifested itself in his first Six Nations Championship, which proved to be his best, as Scotland defeated France, England and Italy in their home fixtures.

But if 2006 was his best year, 2007 was the nadir as Scotland started the Six Nations appearing stronger in strength and quality than the previous year and even with injuries still poised for a Six Nations title battle. Even Hadden said so.

So, when the team instead lost more than 40 points in defeats away to England and France, either end of a tournament in which the Italians had grabbed their first win at Murrayfield with a stunning 37-17 triumph – in truth, the stun-gun hit Murrayfield with three tries to the Azzurri inside the first seven minutes – and finished with one win there could not have been a bigger sense of deflation around Scotland had Margaret Thatcher returned to politics.

It got worse as Hadden fielded a 2nd XV against New Zealand in the Rugby World Cup that autumn, in the only major game of the tournament to be played at Murrayfield, scraped through to the quarter-finals thanks to a late missed kicked by the Italians and then did not play against Argentina in the last eight until it was too late.

Hadden needed a big 2008 Six Nations and instead his team managed just one win again, albeit in the Calcutta Cup, which made Hadden's men the first to win back-to-back Calcutta Cups in 22 years. Another great achievement to add to his collection, but by then major doubts had surfaced, primarily over Hadden's technical and tactical ability to turn the team from competitors into winners.

He was given a stay of execution at the end of the championship only because Andy Robinson, the then Edinburgh coach, turned down the chance to step up at that point out of loyalty to the pro team. But it was merely a delay and, despite the positive autumn in 2008, a third successive Six Nations with one paltry win ensured a swift exit for Hadden this year and slightly more prolonged, but just as predictable entry to the Scotland director's chair for Robinson.

Robinson had already been brought in to work with Hadden, in Argentina in 2008 along with Sean Lineen, the Glasgow coach, and there was a widespread belief that these two had more potential in the Test arena than Hadden. The former Merchiston Castle teacher had done his bit, lifted Scottish hope and players' belief, but Scotland needed an international animal at the helm, and chief executive Gordon McKie finally got his wish in June to bring in the English bulldog.

By then Robinson had steered Edinburgh to second in the Magners League, improving on the third of 2007-8, and his work with Rob Moffat has again been built upon this season with the team very much in the race for the Magners League's new top four play-offs.

Robinson, Moffat and Lineen continue to work very closely together, along with Robinson's assistants, newly-promoted Gregor Townsend and defence coach Graham Steadman, who was retained after Hadden departed. The key to improving Scotland lies with improving the professional teams – and their relationship with the club game – as the time available before internationals is not enough to lift a squad of Scottish players, bearing in mind coaches use over 30 players in a Six Nations tournament, to the required levels of fitness, strength and skills to be successful.

Williams tried to do it on his own and complained about lack of time, Hadden tried to work with the pro teams and still complained about lack of time – despite both having enjoyed far more time with their squads than any coach before them – but Robinson is acutely aware that lack of time is not a worthy excuse, merely a fact of international rugby. His two seasons with Edinburgh provided him with knowledge of the Scottish game and players, and he won admirers for spending time with club coaches in his first year, while big wins for his Scotland 'A' teams over Italy and Ireland – in an aggregate score of 104-22 – added to the belief that he could draw much from a Scotland team.

Robinson was officially appointed just before he took the Scotland 'A' squad to Romania in June for a first shot at the IRB Nations Cup, and he returned home with the trophy – Scotland's first piece of silverware since the 1999 Five Nations trophy.

Hadden had taken Scotland from ninth in the world to seventh in 2006, but the nation was ranked tenth when Robinson took the reins. The mood of the country changed and there was a great optimism, derived largely simply from the widely-desired change and Robinson's different psyche; his plain talk of how Test rugby was only about winning, and desire to strip excuse-making from players' minds.

He continued with his mantra from Edinburgh, that everything was within the players' control, including wins over any nation, and it lifted spirits. Not as much as victory over Australia did, naturally, in November. It was Scotland's first win over the Wallabies in 27 years. Feet returned to earth with a lacklustre 9-6 loss to Argentina and the realisation that only two tries had been scored by Scotland in the three games, the first being a slow burn of a win over Fiji.

Clearly, then, Robinson is no magician and he will head into his first RBS Six Nations as Scotland coach with similar headaches to his predecessors, missing key players, with Euan Murray, Allister Hogg and Simon Taylor among those unavailable. He has a similar group of talent to Hadden, but, young and experienced, they are maturing and with a harder edge visible in the push for victories and consistency at Edinburgh and Glasgow, and still, arguably, none of the five nations to be faced in the spring in outstanding shape, there is once again a new dawn.

Recent experience should ensure expectations do not run ahead of itself, and may even dampen excitement in some, but with a World Cup winner now at Scotland's helm there is a feel of genuine excitement within the Scottish squads and no doubt that confidence is bubbling up again as a demoralising decade ends and a new one of hope begins.