Gregor Townsend pledges to succeed at Glasgow

GREGOR Townsend accepts that there will be critics of his surprising shift from a struggling Scotland team into the plum job of head coach at Glasgow Warriors, but the former Test fly-half has asked the doubters to judge him next season rather than now.

At 38, Townsend is viewed as young to be a head coach, but he can draw inspiration from Scotland chief Andy Robinson who moved straight into the Bath hot-seat after retiring as a player and helped the team claim the Heineken Cup, aged just 33. He also has some of his current boss’s conviction.

Speaking yesterday, after the SRU’s plan to announce that Townsend would replace Sean Lineen at the end of the season was scuppered by a leak to the media at the weekend, Townsend said: “I believe in myself as a coach.

“My aim is to make Glasgow into one of the strongest teams in Europe and I think already the base is there.

“They have a tough group of players, very tough to beat, and they are learners as well.

“I’ve been here a number of times working with Sean and I see this team as only going one place, and that’s forward.”

If he was not already aware of the criticism that met the revelation of the SRU’s move, he was made aware during the media conference by a series of questions. Like Lineen, he was unhappy at the media leak and the fact the news had to be confirmed now rather than later in the season, and accepted that the decision had not met with universal approval, not least among club coaches believing he has been promoted above his station, and them.

But he stated: “Let us judge me on what happens next season and not on what’s just been announced. There is not one direct route to becoming a coach. I have looked at colleagues and peers who have gone on to coach in England, such as Bryan Redpath and Carl Hogg at Gloucester, who came in to an assistant and, with Bryan, a head coach role just after playing rugby.

“When I retired from playing five years ago I was passionate about moving into coaching, and I thought that it would be outside Scotland because that’s where I thought the opportunities would lie. I was delighted and very grateful to be backed by Scottish rugby through working with Edinburgh initially and then Scotland ‘A’, and then the last three seasons with Scotland.

“My experiences of working with Scotland at the highest level have made me what I am today and I’m convinced that I will move this team forward.” Having made the move to Northampton to challenge himself as a player before the game turned professional, and since played in Australia, France and South Africa, and made strong contacts with coaches in those countries, Townsend was looking at a move to coach elsewhere in the UK and abroad when he retired in 2007.

But the SRU stepped in to encourage him to work his way up the professional tree in this country. Asked what, as Scotland attack coach, made him believe he was a good coach, and capable of taking on the Warriors top job, he replied: “The work I see with the players that are improving.

“Obviously, we’re on the back of a defeat at the weekend and we’re really disappointed with that.

“But I believe that from an attacking point of view we’ve really improved in the last few seasons.

“The highlights for me have been beating Australia, South Africa and winning a Test series in Argentina, and on the back of young players coming into the side there is a lot of optimism with this Scotland team moving forward.”

He added: “The focus for me after this meeting [media conference] is to win next weekend. We’re disappointed from the weekend.

“We’d played three games and improved each game, and then some of the stuff we did in the first half [on Saturday] but the second half was disappointing.

“I’d be disappointed if we don’t finish with a win against Italy, very disappointed for the players who have put so much work in, but it would make me even more determined to make a success of it [at Glasgow].

“I understand the responsibility of being a head coach. It is a privileged position I’ve been given and I’m very grateful to the union.

“I’ll be working my socks off to make it a success.”