Graham Steadman raises the bar in wake of historic win

THE other coaches were wheeled in front of the press yesterday on what was officially a rest day for the Scotland squad who had made their weary way back to Buenos Aires from Tucuman on Sunday following their 24-16 win over Argentina.

• Scotland pulled off an excellent win in Tucuman on Saturday, but were once more indebted to the boot of Dan Parks, who kicked all 24 of their points. Picture: PA

Graham Steadman, Gregor Townsend and Massimo Cuttitta make for an intriguing trio, the Englishman, the Scot and the Italian/South African putting one in mind of a music hall gag. Welcome to modern international rugby.

It wasn't quite a repeat of the See No Evil, Hear no Evil, Speak no Evil monkeys. The northerner in Steadman is much too down to earth for that, but the other two were relentlessly upbeat with differing degrees of justification.

Defence coach Steadman is one of those demanding characters who is never satisfied, which is one of the things that makes him good at his job.

"I felt that we could have closed down the space a bit better," he said about Argentina's first try, "and certain individuals, without naming names, well I think they could have done a bit better."

Steadman was full of praise for the vision displayed by Felipe Contepomi and he felt that the Scotland back three left too many inviting gaps for the Pumas' fly-half to exploit.

"If they had been a bit smarter in their vision, certainly on the short side, they could have caused us more problems. I did feel at times that we got a little bit lucky."

A healthy scepticism is a part of the DNA of defence coaches and Steadman felt that the Uruguayan television match official made a mistake when awarding the Pumas' second try by Juan Manual Leguizamon.

He called it a "poor decision" and said that after wearing the video tape out by watching re-runs of the moment he had concluded that the bulky flanker only reached the line at the second attempt after he lost control of the ball.

Whatever the truth, it was more of a try that Scotland managed all afternoon and the attack coach Townsend bewailed the two clear-cut chances that the backs carved out and then fluffed when some accurate handling might have made the difference.

The first opportunity fell to Sean Lamont when the winger was bundled into touch as he dived to touch down, and the second chance came late in the game when Nick De Luca's loose pass to Mike Blair that forced the scrum-half to hesitate in order to collect it.

"I count that as a three-on-one-plus-one, not a two-on-one," said Townsend of Lamont's chance in the first half. "You've got to finish them off. Max (Evans) had a great offload to put Nick into space and we had three attackers managing one defender with another defender coming across. There were seven points potentially. It was similar to the chance we had against Argentina last November."

Townsend pointed out that these two chances would probably have been joined by a good few more were it not for Argentina's insistence on killing the ball any time play got into their 22. It can be a smart move to concede three points rather than seven, but that mode of thinking has its limits and conceding 18 penalty points as the Pumas did last Saturday is plain daft.

"We don't want penalties," said Townsend. The backs, he added, would rather have quick multi-phase possession that should arrive without any illegal interference, although it's a moot point. Scotland's backs have managed just two tries in their last nine test matches, the same number as Johnnie Beattie has managed over the same period, and that sort of strike-rate suggests that, without the help of Dan Park's trusty right boot, they might struggle to win any match.

Townsend heaped praise upon the home side's defence, which is stuffy and organised but otherwise no better than most others. Last November, England scored one try against the Pumas and Wales touched down three times against the same opposition before Scotland managed just two penalties when losing. The new law interpretations help the side with the ball and still the Scots look ponderous and a little one-paced. It's painful to admit, but the backs look a little like England who won oodles of ball against Australia but did next to nothing with it. In contrast, the livewire Wallaby backs conjured up three tries from a mixture of thin air and excellence.

Incidentally, a post-match chat with the match citing commissioner revealed he had been flown all the way from New Zealand and was being put up for a week in Buenos Aires in between watching out for any foul play in the twin tests. It begs the question why nobody from Uruguay or Chile could have been utilised.

Nevertheless, he was a source of some entertaining anecdotes, having once played for Wellington. When I asked him what he made of the match, he offered: "That fly-half chap, the Aussie bloke, yeah Dan Parks, he's got to attack the line a lot more."

A revealing comment when you consider that in Tucuman Parks played as close to the gain line as anyone can remember.