Back five stake strong claims to keep places

ANDY Robinson’s squad is beginning to show the hallmarks of a schizophrenic. On one hand, he’s got the team that played Romania, the side that played some nice attacking rugby at times, that scored four tries on the day, some of them beauties. That side, with Al Kellock and Richie Gray in the second row and Richie Vernon and John Barclay in the back-row, created many scoring opportunities but what it didn’t do was front-up in the physical stakes. It couldn’t live with the Romanian scrum, couldn’t handle the Romanian maul, it was passive and might well have lost the game had the Romanians not decided, in their infinite stupidity, to take off their captain and talisman, Marius Tincu, just as they had taken the lead.

On the other hand, Robinson has yesterday’s team, with Nathan Hines and Jim Hamilton (who has six wins and one draw from his last eight Scotland matches) in the second-row and Alastair Strokosch and Ross Rennie in the back-row. They didn’t score a try and didn’t create many chances either. The team that played Georgia lacked accuracy in its attacking – and we can’t put it all down to the rain. There were too many spillages on the night to be getting overly optimistic about where this team is headed, but at least one thing was for sure.

This lot fronted-up. Mentally and physically they were spot-on. They dealt with the Georgian scrum and negated the Georgian maul. After all the talk about the prodigious power of the Georgians, the Scots embraced the battle and came out on top.

“I was a bit annoyed listening to how great the Georgian pack was, to be honest,” said Hines last night. “It seemed like everybody was talking about how huge they are and what they were going to do to us and I was a bit fed-up by that. We’re a good pack, you know. But all I heard was how brilliant they were, how they were to shove us all over the place and win the game. I was talking to Chunk the other day and we said ‘let’s just get stuck into them’. And that’s what we did.”

Beside Hines stood Jim Hamilton. “We had a sole mindset for this game and it was to dominate up front,” said Hamilton. “We didn’t want parity, we wanted to dominate. I’m absolutely exhausted because it was pretty brutal out there at times. We struggled physically against Romania but we’ve set our mark now.”

There is no denying that, on current form, the back five that started against Georgia is in a better place than the back five who began against Romania. So the dilemma for Robinson as he moves on to Wellington to prepare for the Argentina game a week on Sunday is what to do with his team selection. He is going to be without Euan Murray for that game. Murray was excellent against Georgia and his physical presence will be missed.

Robinson said last night that the Argentina game will be just like the Georgian match; an intense battle with every inch gained only after a thunderous collision. There’s every chance that all of the key games in this group will be settled by a single score either way, so Robinson has got much thinking to do. Kellock is a fine lock and a terrific captain, but Hamilton is an under-rated leader whose work-rate is immense and whose warrior spirit went some way towards bringing down the Georgians. Robinson will surely be thinking hard about what he does with the Gloucester man from here on in. Hines, too. Hines doesn’t offer the same kind of elan as Gray, but he is another leader, a rough-house operator, a clever player who never lets his country down.

If this game against Argentina is going to be about physical and mental strength then who does Robinson go for? Or, to look at it another way, who do you suppose the Pumas would least like to face? I’m guessing they’d feel as if they had more to fear from a Hines and Hamilton combination backed up by Strokosch, Kelly Brown and Rennie, five guys who could destroy their chief attacking weapon; namely, the ferocity of their pack.

That would call for Kellock, the captain, Gray, the golden boy, and John Barclay, on his day an extremely gifted player, to be left out. A huge call, that. But if Wednesday taught us anything it is that Hines, Hamilton, Strokosch and Rennie are now very much in the mix in this World Cup. Leaving Rugby Park it seemed like we were entering a new dimension in this World Cup, the business end, if you like. If it was serious up to this point, it’s going to get even more intense from now on.