No lack of trying, but a distinct lack of tries

The effort was there but an inability to cross the line is the reason for Scots’ exit

DESPONDENT? You ought to be. Instead of remaining in Auckland and turning their attentions to a centre-of-the-sporting-universe World Cup quarter-final with the All Blacks this coming Sunday, Scotland beat a slow retreat from the city just after 4pm yesterday, half the squad departing, the other half waving them off at the door of their downtown hotel until such time as they make their own exit in the next few days. Two wins and two defeats (by a cumulative total of five points) and Andy Robinson’s team were out of there, dumped at the pool stage for the first time ever and left with a catalogue of what might have beens to fry their brains to eternity.

Four games and try-less in three of them. Twenty teams in this World Cup and only two with a worse try-scoring record – Romania and Georgia. Even Namibia, who had South Africa, Wales, Samoa and Fiji in their pool, managed to outscore the Scots. Canada and Japan, who had the All Blacks and the French for company in their group, scored twice the number of tries as Robinson’s side. So did the Russians, who came up against the Wallabies, the Irish and the Italians.

Sport is cruel. That is why we love it. Scotland got chewed up and spat out over the last month. We look back and there is so much to remember, so many moments that made you watch through the cracks of your fingers. Some random thoughts, then, from the frontline of a calamity.

In the beginning, it was Invercargill

…And a lucky escape

Let’s not go crazy over the idea that the only luck Scotland got in New Zealand was bad luck. On day one, against the Romanians, they were in mortal danger of losing their first match until Romania made arguably the daftest substitution in the history of the World Cup. The underdogs had the game in their hands. The had fought back from a 21-11 deficit and had turned it into a 24-21 lead. They did it on the back of the physical pounding they administered to a flat Scottish pack and the guy who was doing a lot of the damage, and leading the charge, was their captain, Marius Tincu.

Tincu was immense. And then he was gone. Incredibly, and inexplicably, Romania took him off just as soon as they took the lead with 14 minutes to go. There was nothing wrong with him. When I caught up with him afterwards and asked why he’d been substituted he screwed up his face and said nothing… but everything.

When Tincu went off, much of the Romanian dog went with him. Had he stayed on the pitch there was every chance that Scotland, lamentably short of a hard edge, would have been beaten. We shouldn’t forget how the Scots dodged a bullet that day.

Then there was Chunk

…The straightest of straight talkers

When talking about the Romania game, Allan Jacobsen’s expletive count reached double figures. Here was a guy who was hugely angry and brutally honest. After every game, we beat a path to Chunk’s door looking for comment because you knew you were getting the truth from him, even if he did, in his profound disappointment, struggle to make sense of it all at times. “We’ve got to get our f****** act together,” he said after the Romania match. “They f****** smashed us. Another f****** lesson.” His clinical analysis, utterly free of self-pity, of Scotland’s failings in the Argentina match were a joy. His pre-match interview ahead of the England game was almost moving. The guy was in pain at the thought of going home early. There were lots of players you felt for when it all went wrong. And Chunk was one of them.

And then to Wellington

…Running down a blind alley

Forty-eight minutes gone in the pivotal match of Scotland’s World Cup. Max Evans chips ahead down the right hand side, and gathers his own kick on the bounce. The Pumas are in trouble. John Barclay is on Evans’s shoulder and takes it on. Then Rory Lawson ventures on to the scene. Lawson can go down the short-side or he can look across the vast expanse to his left where Scotland have such a numbers advantage that Sean Lamont was later quoted as saying that had the ball come they could have walked it in for the try. Lawson took the wrong option, went blind and got buried. This kind of things happens repeatedly with Scotland. Robinson calls it bad decision making from good players. He says it’s a mental thing, like it can be fixed. Well, he’s had two years to fix it and he’s no nearer a solution to the catastrophe that is Scotland’s lack of try-power.

Robinson has been in charge for 23 Tests and Scotland have scored 19 tries. In more than 50 per cent of his matches Scotland have gone try-less. Even Frank Hadden, that arch-conservative, got more tries out of his team in his last 23 Tests in charge than Robinson has. Of course, Hadden had nothing like the win ratio. Robinson is streets ahead of Hadden as a coach. At what point does he accept, though, that he needs to bring in fresh ideas in the coaching of his backline? If the players are good enough – as he says, though we dispute that – then why are they still making the same ruinous decisions as they were two years ago?

He is loyal to Gregor Townsend, the backs coach. That’s fine. There’s a place for Townsend in all of this. Maybe Townsend is going to be the next, or a future, Scotland coach. He’d benefit from new thinking in the coaching team as much as anybody. Robinson and Townsend need help with their attack. It’s as obvious as the World Cup try table that shows Namibia and Russia ahead of them on touch downs.

The power of six

…The great folly of Amorosino’s try

Defence coach Graham Steadman counted the mistakes leading up to Argentina’s winning try at the Cake Tin, starting with their inability to deal with a basic restart. There were six failures in all. Six!

Deja vu

…Another day, another restart

All week we heard about the importance of concentration at restarts and the price a team can pay for switching-off. Steadman said before the England game that he could guarantee that the kind of thing that destroyed them against Argentina wouldn’t happen against England. But it did. Exact same failing – the only difference being that when Scotland botched a restart against the Pumas it cost them seven points and the match, whereas on Saturday it cost them three points but vital momentum. Nobody could explain why this colossal error was repeated within six days.

Nick De Luca was unlucky?

…Luck ain’t got nothing to do with it

Here is what other coaches say about Scotland when the tape recorders are off and the comments are not for quoting: “Strong pack. Good set-piece. Can make your life hell. Can disrupt and harry all day long. But, ultimately, they’re easy to defend against.” This has been the way of it for years. It was the same at the last World Cup and without much in the way of a cavalry of young and exciting backline talent coming over the horizon it might be the same in the next one, too. And De Luca’s missed opportunity is one of the reasons why Scotland don’t score. They miss overlaps, they make bad decisions, they can’t pick up and gather a ball a few metres from the line. The conditions were wet. Fine. De Luca was moving at speed. Fair enough. It wasn’t easy. Accepted. But others do it. We’re not just talking about the big guns, we’re talking about the Canadas and the Russias and the Tongas and the Japanese. They have all scored tries that have involved dexterity and skill against opponents that are better than them.

Legacy

…And the damage done

A primary school in Stirling; P5 boys and girls gripped by the World Cup and engrossed in games surrounding the events in New Zealand. Each group in the class is given a country to follow. Some are given the glamorous All Blacks or the world champion Springboks or the mysterious French, but everybody wants Scotland. But Scotland are now out. Nobody wants Scotland any more. The kids now want Ireland or Argentina or Wales. Another chance to stir the imagination of the country’s youth is lost.

The game in Scotland is in trouble. Glasgow and Edinburgh are under- financed in the harsh world of professional rugby and they’re being left behind. Month on month and year on year there is less and less to feel good about, so the World Cup was supposed to be a boon. It wasn’t. There was optimism heading out here, but this is a results business and so it has been a disaster.

There are nuances to the failure. So many “if onlys”. Frankly, they’re not worth a damn. Robinson is a fine coach and he has improved the quality and the results of the side, no question. He has won 11 and lost 11, but seven of the 11 losses have been by seven points or less. He’s calling for patience in order to get it right. And he’ll get it. He deserves it on those numbers. But it would be negligent of him not to address in a very precise way the fundamental flaw in his team – the chronic and destructive lack of tries. In his time off in the coming months he should be thinking hard about beefing up his back-room.