Tom English: ‘Life has three certainties. Death, taxes and getting shafted by Wayne Barnes’

AT THE outset of this Six Nations championship, in the business of judging Andy Robinson’s stewardship of Scotland, things looked fairly black and white.

He said himself that he was no longer interested in talking about progress unless it was accompanied by victory. He spoke about the team having reached a point whereby the bottom line was all that counted now. That bottom line being that, after only two wins in ten Six Nations games and only four in 14 when you include the World Cup, Scotland needed to start winning. How many did they need to keep the wheels on the Robinson bike? One wasn’t enough, that was for sure. Two was break-even. Three was a sign of serious progress.

There is, of course, no chance of three wins now. And you’d have to say that two is looking dodgy also. The pessimists might say, with good reason, that Scotland are iffy for even one win given that their last game is in Rome against an Italian side who are usually nuggety opponents on their home turf – especially when they’re up against Scotland. Italy will be licking their lips in anticipation of the arrival of Robinson and his team. Scotland have lost in Rome the last two times they have played there. Their record in Italy is wretched – played six, lost four, won two.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

If you had said a month ago that Scotland would be zero from three in the Six Nations, this column would have been sharpening the knife. It’s still on standby but this championship has been devilishly difficult to analyse from a Scotland perspective.

If we were to judge Robinson on the bottom line then we’d be preparing his P45 now. Five defeats in a row for the first time since 2004. Another failed (possibly) Six Nations campaign that follows the two failures that went before under his watch. Extend the analysis and you have to include an exit from the World Cup before the quarter-finals for the only time in Scotland’s history. That’s quite some cocktail. You then have to factor in Robinson’s overall record including his England years. Six wins in 23 games as a Six Nations coach. He has never finished above fourth in the table. You look through his time as coach of England and Scotland and there is a recurring theme. His teams keep on losing narrowly. It’s extraordinary how many times Robinson’s teams have lost Test matches by a single score.

Already in this Six Nations, two of their three defeats have been by seven points or fewer. Actually, six of the last seven defeats that Scotland have suffered have been by a converted try or less. Sometimes a lot less. A three-point loss to Ireland in the championship last year, a one-point loss to Argentina at the World Cup and then a four-point loss to England a week later. This is some kind of rugby purgatory that Robinson and his players have been plunged into.

As tempting as it is to look at the awful raw numbers of his reign and say “right, this cannot go on, time somebody else was given a chance”, there are nuances to Robinson’s regime that cannot be overlooked no matter how awful that bottom line might be.

In making a plea in mitigation for Robinson, we’re not talking about excuses, we’re not going to bang the drum about Wayne Barnes getting it wrong last Sunday. I spoke to an international coach last week and asked him about Barnes. His reply? “There are three certainties in life. Death, taxes and at some point in your life, getting shafted by Wayne f****** Barnes! Every coach gets it. You just live with it.”

So forget the sob stories about Barnes and the Stuart Hogg try that wasn’t in Wales and Nick De Luca’s rush of blood and the Greig Laidlaw try that wasn’t given against England and all the missed chances and all the ifs and all the buts in the world. Forget all that. Every coach could sing a lament. It’s boring listening to them.

The mitigation for Robinson is that his team is clearly improving. Game on game, they have got better in this championship. Hogg has been quite something. One of the revelations of the tournament. Laidlaw might just be the man to revolutionise the Scottish attack. Lee Jones has looked sharp. David Denton has been immense. These are new players – or relatively new players. Laidlaw is the oldest at 26. Jones is 23, Denton 22 and Hogg only 19. Between the four of them they have 14 caps. It’s not hard to see the nucleus of a new side emerging.

Where before the creative burden fell on Max Evans and pretty much nobody else, now there is Hogg, a burgeoning star, and Laidlaw, a great decision-maker in an opponent’s 22, and Jones, an exciting finisher. There is the suggestion of something more dynamic in that backline.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

At last, Scotland have started to score tries. Two against France and one (actually, two) against Wales is a promising sign. The French and Welsh defences are as good as you’re going to get. Some of the rugby that Scotland played when breaking down the World Cup semi-finalists was wonderful.

That upward curve in terms of performance (if not victories) would need to be continued in the coming weeks, that’s for sure. That’s all Robinson is hanging on to at the moment. He is saying: ‘Yes, we’re losing, but the margins are tiny and we’re playing well and the wins will soon come’.

The last thing Robinson needs now is a bad defeat in Dublin or a substandard effort in Rome. He needs his team to carry on improving or else he’s exposing himself to all sorts of questions about his ability to take the team forward. Robinson won’t be sacked, but to win over the doubters, the elan of Murrayfield last Sunday (minus a few of the defensive calamities) is a must in Dublin.

Robinson is like a broken record when he talks about fine margins. We’ve heard it from him so often now we tend to throw our eyes to the heavens when he repeats the mantra after every loss. But he’s right. The margins are, indeed, fine. Watching Scotland fall short has become a torturous business, but sometimes you can’t focus only on the bottom line.

This team is growing, it is getting better, it is more dangerous in attack than it has been in years and it has more players of genuine class than it has done in quite some time.

Yes, they’re zero from three in this championship and zero from five overall.

I guess in judging Robinson it depends on how you look at a light at the end of tunnel. Is it the light of hope or the light of an oncoming train?

For now, we say the former.