Iain Morrison: Problems Dan Parks can't kick away

Published on Saturday 27 November 2010 13:11

In one of his more lucid insights into the human condition Homer Simpson once declared: "Beer, the cause of, and the solution to, all of life's problems".

For "beer" read Dan Parks and you get some idea of the conundrum facing Andy Robinson after three EMC autumn internationals. The Australian playmaker is the crux of Scotland's recent run of excellence (overlooking the All Blacks fiasco) and he is at the heart of Scotland's woes.

Parks showcased his match management abilities against South Africa just as he had previously done in Argentina and Dublin. Courage comes in many guises and if he is not the bravest soul on the planet with a giant breakaway blocking out the sun, still the fly-half is nerveless when lining up crucial kicks in the sort of weather that would make the AA advise you to stay indoors.

But there is a flip side. With Parks pulling the strings for Scotland the outside backs get the ball 15 metres behind the gainline with almost all of their momentum lateral rather than forward.

I don't know what Graeme Morrison's relationship with the Aussie is like but it may be a little strained since the big Glasgow centre looks very ordinary when collecting man and ball in quick succession while rooted to the spot. So would Sonny Bill Williams in the same circumstances.

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Parks can't or won't play flat to the gainline, so keeping the defence honest and preventing them from drifting across on to his outside backs. That fact is the single biggest contributor to Scotland's appalling try-scoring record. Under Andy Robinson the men in blue have managed just seven tries in 13 internationals to date.

Since two of those tries came against Fiji when Parks wasn't in the squad (Robinson overlooked him in his first four matches) the Aussie has actually presided over five tries in nine matches.

Since only two of those scores came from a back (Max Evans in Cardiff and Nikki Walker yesterday) Parks has actually cajoled two tries from his backs on Robinson's watch and, even then, one of them came from a grubber kick in behind the rushing Welsh defence.

In summary, with Parks at fly-half the Scottish backs have handled/run the ball over the opposition line just once in the last nine matches (720 minutes) of international rugby.

Does it matter, though, if Scotland keep winning with kicks?

Sadly yes, for two reasons. Without scoring tries Scotland will never rack up much more than 20 points per match with the boot which means that they must restrict the opposition from reaching that modest number to give themselves any chance of winning.Secondly, there are many reasons players concede penalties but there is only one good reason… to stop the opposition scoring a try.

Given the paucity of the threat from the Scottish backs, no team that has done even the most cursory homework would concede kickable penalties rather than allow the Scots' to recycle the ball at the breakdown. England and Argentina are in Scotland's World Cup group, so coaches Martin Johnson and Santiago Phelan have the best part of a year to drum that truth into their players' heads. It is tempting to blame the inexperienced offence coach Gregor Townsend for Scotland's blunt attack and certainly he must up his game. When the players' creative juices run dry there needs to be far more thought put into set piece plays because far too few of Scotland's efforts breach the first line of defence.

All too often moves are telegraphed in advance and there is little thought given to pulling defenders out of position to create holes for others to exploit. Walker's score was the exception that proves the rule.

The constant crabbing across the field needs to be corrected. The feeling persists that Townsend was promoted too far too fast but, short of resorting to a cattle prod, he is powerless to persuade Parks to attack the gainline.

Robinson's instinct is to play with the ball in hand but he might just be pulling in his horns and lowering his ambitions a tad now.

While the new breakdown law favours the side with the ball, and New Zealand have illustrated just what can be achieved by attacking space and offloading, the World Cup is right around the corner and teams with a strong defence and a kicking fly-half usually prosper when the big ones roll around. In any event it is a little late in the day to be reinventing the wheel.

The Scotland coach keeps his own council on his side's shortcomings but he had this to say ahead of the South African match: "We would like to play like New Zealand and Australia but they have a lot of pace and skill in the backline."

The implication is obvious. The standard of Scotland's back play is behind not just the southern hemisphere giants but the rest of the UK too, and even then few of Scotland's outside backs graduated from the Scottish system.

Against New Zealand just two of the starting seven backs learned their rugby in Scotland (Mike Blair and Graeme Morrison) against South Africa and Samoa it was three (Rory Lawson, Morrison and Nikki Walker) while the remainder grew up either in England or Australia.

Townsend can only work with the material he has but is this try-scoring record really the best these players can achieve with the ball in hand? Rumours persist that the attack coach is pushing for Ruaridh Jackson to start for Scotland. If that's true it's easy to understand his reasoning.

For all his excellence elsewhere, the try drought looks set to continue with Parks in place.