Six Nations: Scotland need to rediscover their 'mongrel' fury to avoid being crushed by England

Published on Friday 11 March 2011 18:56

The year was 1983 and Scotland had just won at Twickenham for only the fourth time in history. Margaret Thatcher was in No.10, many of today's Scotland team had yet to be born and Duran Duran were No 1 in the charts.

Andy Robinson is more of an old realist than a New Romantic but he still insists Scotland can win today, despite history and recent results weighing heavily against it. With England unbackable favourites he is in a small minority.

In the build-up to this match much of the focus has been on the coach rather than his team. Robinson has watched a few matches at Twickenham as a "civilian" but today is the first time he has returned to the scene of his 2006 agony against Argentina in an official capacity.

That defeat by the Pumas is widely understood to have ended his England coaching career and, during it, Robinson threw on a young fly-half, Tobias Gerald Albert Lieven Flood (almost an backline on his own) who announced his arrival on the international stage by throwing a long pass that was intercepted by Federico Todeschini who went the length of the field to score under the posts.

The very same man threatens to ruin Robinson's return to Twickenham. Flood is central to England's revival and the coach picked him as the player he would most like to "sign" for Scotland were it allowed.

Robinson also paid Ruaridh Jackson the compliment of likening him to the Englishman, at least in potential.

Five years after the event, Robinson returns to the scene of his demise, although he will surely receive a warm welcome from the supporters who know just how central he was to their success in the Clive Woodward era.

Six Nations coverage in full

• 'Hate' has gone out of Calcutta Cup, says England coach Martin Johnson

• Scotland need to rediscover their 'mongrel' fury to avoid being crushed by England

• Records 'there to be broken', says Rory Lawson

• Tom English: 'English jibes must represent an effrontery to the proud Scots'

• Chris Ashton once feared his switch to union was a mistake. His try record proves otherwise

• Sound of silence will be a result for Scotland at England's fortress

• Calcutta cup head to heads

• Italy 22 - 21 France: Nick Mallett's finest hour

• Wales 19 - 13 Ireland: Irish fury over winning try fails to dampen Welsh joy

• Women's Six Nations: Ruth Slaven eager to tackle the English

The third member of that Rugby World Cup-winning axis was Martin Johnson and the respect between today's two coaches is almost tangible. During the week both men were extolling the other's virtues and, by extension, their own because they are cut from the same cloth.

Johnson has been fortunate that the emergence of Ben Youngs, Ben Foden and Chris Ashton has added a new dimension to English back play just when it looked like the squad was stuck in a blinkered Leicester rut. He has given them a free hand to attack from all corners and, if Scotland do the same, they will be chasing shadows all afternoon. After taking the team to new highs last year, Robinson is having a difficult second season. His selections were questioned when he was England's coach and the same is now happening in his adopted country. Sticking Nathan Hines on the flank is an open invitation to Ben Youngs to attack the blind side of a set scrum. Playing a one-dimensional centre like Sean Lamont outside Jackson raised a few eyebrows and picking a running fly-half when the only dominant aspect of Scotland's play so far has been the lineout is another bold call.

Why does the coach constantly push to develop Scotland's game by picking Jackson? The answer came last week from an unlikely source. England's defence coach Mike Ford stated that his side reckon on scoring a minimum of 20 points to win a Six Nations match and between 25 and 27 to beat a Southern Hemisphere team. Sadly for Scotland, not too many Test teams gift you seven penalty kicks at goal.

Robinson has earned the right to make his own selections and exactly which Scottish XV takes to the field is almost irrelevant in one crucial aspect.

While Robinson is the archetypal Englishman he sometimes appears to know the Scottish psyche better than we do ourselves. In his first year in charge he spoke glowingly of Scotland's traditional virtues of passion and organised chaos but something has been lost from those early days when Robinson's side played with the true grit of a real mongrel. This Scotland side has lost their snap and snarl, they have misplaced their mojo.

At one point early in the Irish game, Gordon D'Arcy walked over to Mike Blair lying prone on the ground. Long after the whistle had blown he lifted him up and dropped the slight scrum-half back down a couple of times. Kelly Brown eventually remonstrated with him but no one else batted an eye.

Rugby is a brutal business in which every team attempts to bully the opposition and Scotland currently find themselves at the bottom of the food chain.The Scots more than any other nation in Europe rely on playing with a controlled fury, a passion, a focused rage, call it what you will, to make up for their lack of size or strength on the field and without it they are just another minnow in a pool of sharks. Yet it has disappeared, dissipated, gone with the wind, jettisoned somewhere over the Atlantic when the squad returned from Argentina or embarrassed out of the building by the horror of that performance against Wales.

We can argue the relative merits of Dan Parks and Jackson or Moray Low and Euan Murray but the personnel are, frankly, irrelevant unless the Scots play with a collective emotional intensity that boosts the team performance above the sum of the individual contributions.

And that is just the first step. Passion and courage go a long way but even they won't be enough this afternoon. Scotland will have to eliminate the stream of errors that have blighted their performances so far and the set scrum has a Herculean task ahead of it. If England's big men sniff a weakness they will keep the ball at Nick Easter's feet and milk penalty after penalty because French referee Romain Poite is nothing if not decisive and he always calls in favour of the dominant pack.

Above all else Scotland's defence will need to be inspired because, if England are gifted an early try (and why should they be any different?), confidence will course through their veins and they will win at a canter.The good news is that this England side are a long way short of greatness, winning in what has been an average championship without being tested over the 80 minutes and looking as ordinary as any other team when France/Wales exerted occasional pressure.

Scotland, meanwhile, are performing so far below their best that they might as well have been kidnapped and replaced by a local pub team.

If Robinson can breathe sufficient quantities of sulphur and self-belief into his men to rattle England, and the Scots play with an accuracy that has been alien to everything they have done to date, we'll have a game on our hands.

Anything else will result in an England win, and probably a big one.

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