David Ferguson: Too soon to sharpen the knives for Townsend over Scots’ cutting edge

ATTACK is a key part of any sport and the debate now developing in Scottish rugby after another disappointing start to the RBS Six Nations Championship appears to be which characters to attack.

After Scotland coach Andy Robinson confirmed his defence coach Graham Steadman is not being retained when his contract expires in May, there were questions from elements of the media about Gregor Townsend’s future. Some of the former stand-off’s critics appear to believe he is responsible for most if not all of the national team’s ills, while, for others, there has been a more understandable concern since he was appointed by Robinson in 2009 to the position of attack coach that it was a premature move.

Townsend finished playing in 2007, but what Robinson saw, which Frank Hadden also turned to in 2008, was an appreciation in Townsend of the way the modern game was developing that was not apparent in others in Scotland. The intelligent Borderer has always had a cerebral tactical/technical approach to the game, one which any of his team-mates would attest to, and some admit to being bored by over-lengthy ‘Toony theses’.

But his thinking was developed when working with Scotland squads of the 1990s, when winning games and scoring tries was far more common, under coaches such as Jim Telfer, Ian McGeechan, Richie Dixon and David Johnston among others.

That alone does not make a successful coach. There are others with different skills and more experience who could have been promoted. The 38-year-old was perhaps in the right place at the right time, and he certainly was enthusiastic about the challenge of turning around a Scotland attack that, from 1999 onwards, when he was only the second Scot to score a try in every championship match, has lost the art of try-scoring.

When we study the argument now being promulgated elsewhere for sacking Townsend – the first time I can remember of the media calling for an assistant’s head and ignoring the head coach – it is worth comparing Scotland’s attacking record. Gauging the success or otherwise of an attack is not a black-and-white issue. For example, penalties are often the result of good attacks stopped illegally by opposition sides, but for purposes of comparison, generally, tries are the best measure of an attack’s fruit and certainly is the one being held up now as the great fault of the attack coach.

Across the history of the Six Nations, going back to 2000, all try-scoring has in general tailed off, from England scoring 20, 29 and 23 in the first three tournaments to only managing 43 in the past four, for instance. Similarly, the top scorers France accumulated 80 tries in the first five tournaments and 63 in the last five.

With Italy having scored 12 in 2003, Scotland remain the only nation not to yet achieve double figures for tries in one championship, their closest being nine in 2000. In four seasons under Ian McGeechan, they scored 30, in two with Matt Williams it was 12, Hadden’s teams yielded 19 in four tournaments and, so far, Robinson’s sides have scored 14 with three games to go in their third tournament. So, they are ahead of Hadden’s scoring rate and close to Williams’.

Were we to be at the point Hadden found himself in 2008-9, with a game closing up around Dan Parks’ kicking at stand-off, relative to the way Hadden opened up Scotland’s attack in his first season – yet still was rewarded with just a try a game – then we would perhaps be in the same pit of despair about what lay ahead.

But that is not the case and, just as Hadden could do little about the skills of the players he had to work with, as was the case with Williams and McGeechan, so it is less about the ability of the coaches now and more to do with the emerging talent.

The coaches have a crucial role, of course, and one only has to look at the style of game Scotland are playing now and the consistent line-breaking occurring, and contrast that with the years before Robinson took over when the most depressing statistic after games was the ‘nil’ in the line-breaks column. Townsend’s critics appear to be ignoring that.

Am I the only one seeing players hitting gaps now? Clearly, it is not as often as we would like still, and there remain some slow, predictable patterns at times as players take the wrong option, run short on confidence under pressure or drop the ball.

One other reason for critics to believe that Townsend is following Steadman out of the door lies in the appointment of Scott Johnson, the Australian, to help the coaching team. However, one key reason for his appointment was to cover Robinson’s potential year out with the British and Irish Lions. That may now seem unlikely, but Johnson is also expected to bring a different thinking to the coaching staff and some mentoring too.

Robinson’s decision to promote Townsend as quickly as he did may have been questionable, but now that he has invested such time in a coach that is widely respected in Scotland and abroad, it would be a surprise were he to change tack and drop him now.

If Scotland lose their remaining three games, it would be right to look again at the coaching make-up, and Robinson himself may not survive. But for the moment, those looking for another head to roll will have to wait.