Future fills Townsend with belief for Scotland

By David Ferguson
Published on Tuesday 15 November 2011 00:42

GREGOR Townsend was not making bold promises about Scottish rugby’s decade and more of struggle on the international stage being over, but the former Scotland stand-off believes there are genuine signs of a turnaround looming for the national squad.

Townsend was a pivotal figure when Scotland last claimed some meaningful silverware, the last Five Nations Championship in 1999, in which he scored against all nations, and yesterday he rolled back the years in helping team-mate from that time Stuart Reid launch the Glengoyne Auld Enemy Dinner at The Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh, an event in association with The Scotsman that will raise money for Help for Heroes and The Bill McLaren Foundation.

Townsend believes there are good times around the corner again, and spoke of his delight at watching Edinburgh and Glasgow open their Heineken Cup campaigns with wins over leading English clubs at the weekend, and excitement at the prospect of players such as Duncan Weir, Stuart Hogg, Rob Harley, Matt Scott and Harry Leonard coming through to the Test arena over the next couple of years.

He said: “The results at the weekend were great and this has the potential to be a breakthrough year for the Scottish clubs in Europe.

“Glasgow have come into the competition with some momentum from winning regularly and Edinburgh got a good win out in Treviso before heading to London Irish, and when you win the first game in your pool then your chances of qualifying increase by 20 per cent – while for London Irish, Bath and Racing Metro they decrease.

“Obviously, it’s only one game and there is a long way to go yet, but it’s now about building momentum and if they can get wins this weekend we could really be optimistic.”

Turning to the youngsters, he continued: “The emergence of talented boys learning in this environment is what I am really excited about. It was a disappointing end to the World Cup for us, but as soon as you leave it you’re starting to look at the Six Nations, and about the players and the teams that could come together to help Scotland win the next game.

“There was an obvious concern a few years ago that we weren’t getting young stand-offs coming through, and then Ruaridh Jackson emerged, and now we have Duncan Weir, Gregor Hunter and Harry Leonard starting to learn at pro level, and while these are good talents who happen to be coming through together there has been a lot of special attention there by coaches in Scotland and down south in the last few years.

“The SRU is working hard on programmes to bring players on quicker, and it’s something we can learn from the World Cup. We need to be planning not only for the Six Nations coming up, but the next World Cup in 2015 and thinking about where the players are coming through for that because boys who are just 15 or 16 now could be the George Norths [19-year-old Welsh wing] of 2015 for us.

“And when you look at the 19/20 year-olds we have talked about who are stepping up at the professional teams, and the World Cup performers like Ross Ford and Richie Gray and the form they are in coming back from the World Cup you start to see reasons to be optimistic.”

The Glengoyne Auld Enemy Dinner, to be held each year in Edinburgh and London on the eve of the Calcutta Cup match, will see a plethora of internationalists from Scotland and England, including Jim Telfer, Fin Calder, Scott Hastings, Gary Armstrong, Brian Moore, Matt Dawson, Mike Teague and Peter Winterbottom at the first event on Friday 3 February, 2012.

Explaining his reasons for the event, Reid said: “I looked back on my brief Scotland career and my greatest game was definitely the Calcutta Cup match in 2000, and I just felt that we don’t celebrate the uniqueness of the oldest and arguably the most famous rugby fixture in history.

“Nothing is done on a regular basis to bring former players together and invite guests to mix with them and hear their stories of a great sporting occasion. This is about rivalry; it’s about passion; it’s about what made the 1990 team walk down that tunnel; it’s about the 2000 team and how we had been cuffed in every game but when it came to England we produced a show-stopping performance.

“When I spoke to players from Scotland and England they all embraced the idea. We enjoyed dinners as players, and would love to savour a special weekend with an event now, but one with a different format to traditional dinners, with supporters, some fun and the opportunity to raise funds for two great charities.”

Ticket information is available from Reid at [e-mail], and a new website promoting the event, and others being organised, will go live later today at: www.theauldenemy.co.uk

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JCA REID

Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 01:23 PM

Just like in soccer... a talented player in his day has a go at managementcoaching.....the supporters expect success & actually get zilch! The past few years prove this. They can't get Parks, in broken play, to come up close to the gain line to continue the pressure & move the ball out to a line of atacking players....he simply keeps back 10-12plus yards back & kicks the ball away to much relief for the opponents after hard work has been done in getting possession, making a bit of a break & recycling . The one dimensional stodgefest is going to continue ad infinitum until there is a massive shake up throughout Scottish rugby.

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[e-mail]

Tuesday, November 15, 2011 at 05:46 PM

BFS I understand your reservations about Lamont but I still think hew offers more sadly nowadays than Paterson who was badly exposed in NZ under the high ball and not for the first time in one on one tackling -please lets not go back to his good tackle at Twickenham as he`s missed and fallen off tackles far more than that . Lamont has been injury prone and played badly V the All Blacks last time however we must have a 15 who can offer something with ball in hand and I think he can .We need a ohysical quick full back and the answer is not cy urrently at Edinburgh or Glasgow -possibly Cuthbert at Bath ?

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BFS

Tuesday, November 15, 2011 at 05:01 PM

Sorry, Alan, but I just don't get the Rory Lamont thing. He is an inveterate ball hogger who has cost Scotland innumerable tries by his unwillingness, or perhaps inability, to pass, his defense is risible (do you remember the pre-World Cup Italian match?) and his so-called attacking prowess usually ends in a twirl after which he either falls over or bangs into another player. Having watched him on many occasions play for Scotland I just don't rate him as an International player. Let's face it, even his limited try-scoring has been against what are usually referred to as dolly teams!

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[e-mail]

Tuesday, November 15, 2011 at 02:54 PM

Totally agree with Doc and Lemagee This is a serious mistake by AR keeping Townsend .His head is now on the line backing a guy who clearly cannot inspirecoach attacking back play at this level -he doesn`t even talk a good game After our failures in this regard at the World cup it is staggering that Townsend is still in his role -it`s all too cosy again ! On another note he and AR can tell themselves Jackson is the better bet but a few thousand following Glasgow will pick Weir every time We also have to really shake up selection at full back and scrum half .viz Rory Lamont and young Hogg with Laidlaw at 9 -Cusiter had a shocker V Bath

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The Doc5

Tuesday, November 15, 2011 at 12:59 PM

Interviewing Gregor seems to be in fashion for the moment as there have been similar articles elsewhere over the last few days. What concerned me most was the stress put on Andy Robinson's opinion that Townsend was a good coach, that he was AR's choice and that AR intended to stick with him. Given AR's well-documented inability to select teams (the famous journalistic quote "Robinson doesn't pick teams, he picks favourites" springs to mind), perhaps he has the same problems choosing coaching staff

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Aussie Aussie Aussie

Tuesday, November 15, 2011 at 10:06 AM

To be fair to gregor, if we keep playing 3rd tier teams we could be very successful. Let's just stay clear of anybody in the 6 nations or the tri-nations. Oh, and Argentina. Oh, and Samoa. Perhaps Fiji too.

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Borderlad

Tuesday, November 15, 2011 at 08:23 AM

Yep The easiest part of any coaches job is to coach "moves" Lots of inexperienced Coaches hide behind this shield. Lets get experienced Coaches in on the National Coaching set up ( those who have served their apprenticeship at lower levels ) That said, Our second tier group coaches should be focussing on "Attacking" skills. It is not the National coaches job to focus on basics, they should be gelling a group of players from different teams and making them tick as one ( hence "moves" mindset )

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O. Kontrayr

Tuesday, November 15, 2011 at 08:11 AM

There may indeed be good times just around the corner, but we are never going to get round that corner with Townsend in post. If he ever had a welcome, he has long outstayed it. Taxi for Gregor.

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Doc Martin

Tuesday, November 15, 2011 at 08:07 AM

#Leemagee. Totally agree. It was interesting to note a comment made by the pundits on the Glasgow - Bath match on Sky at the weekend. They said that Bath backs looked over coached and were too focused on performing set moves instead of play what was in front of them... and for me, that sums up Scotlands backs at the moment.

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leemagee

Tuesday, November 15, 2011 at 02:49 AM

Gregor Townsend needs fired yesterday. He basically is passing the buck here by saying that defensive mishaps cost us the England and Argentina matches. If we had been able to score a couple of tries then the games would have been over with 10 minutes to go. With Parks going for drop goals 3 metres away from the England line that's an indication that the players are not confident with scoring. He can say that the Edinburgh and Glasgow players are taking a step in the right direction with try-scoring but this has absolutely nothing to do with him. It's time we stopped awarding mediocrity...the guy needs to go and cut his teeth at club rugby...how he got a job coaching Scotland having never coached before is beyond me.

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