Yes, Andy Robinson has made the right call at stand-off

THE selection of Ruaridh Jackson at stand-off for Scotland against Argentina on Sunday is bold but it was the only choice for coach Andy Robinson if he wants to develop his preferred style of game.

As he strives to make Scotland a serious player in the world’s top eight nations, it was revealing that Robinson touched a lot on the Calcutta Cup match this year when explaining his choice. In that match Scotland took the game to England at Twickenham, had them on the rack for long spells and would have won the game had their passing and finishing been better. Jackson was the stand-off that day and Robinson saw the game that he believes will make Scotland not only more competitive against higher-ranked opposition but actually help them win.

Jackson has the desire to attack the gain-line – a prerequisite for a modern stand-off – and the pace and deft running to offer a threat that at least holds defenders.

However this debate would not even be taking place if he was experienced enough to play that way on a consistent basis. So, it is about what Jackson can do versus what we know Dan Parks already does.

Robinson took over the helm at the end of the worst decade of results in Scottish international history. There are countless reasons why the Scottish game had fallen behind. Most can be traced to the advent of professionalism and relative lack of finance and playing numbers.

But the Scotland coach still has to find a winning blend from the raw materials at his disposal. When Ian McGeechan returned to Scotland in 2000, he tried to get the best out of a squad that had just won the Five Nations Championship and even his tactical brilliance was unermined by a basic lack of quality.

He struggled through the 2003 World Cup, losing heavily to France and scraping into the quarter-finals with a late try against Fiji. After a promising first half in which the team played with ball in hand, they came unstuck against Australia.

Matt Williams came in in 2004 and insisted he would lift the nation with a highly-skilled game only to find driving the necessary improvement was not as straightforward as he had imagined. After 18 months, Frank Hadden stepped in and he said that Scotland’s best route to success was a fast, open game. In his first season he told the players to move the ball and play with confidence. After Williams’ highly-prescriptive zonal style, it was as if someone had allowed the players to breathe again. Rejuvenated, they scored fine wins over France and England in Hadden’s first Six Nations.

Consistency was a problem for Scotland and other coaches across the world began to view law interpretation changes negatively and scrapped running rugby in favour of kicking the ball away and forcing defensive mistakes from defences. So Hadden went into the 2007 World Cup with a tighter game that revolved around the world-class kicking ability of Parks.

Despite reaching the quarter-finals, so many of the squad regard the subsequent defeat to Argentina as one of the biggest regrets in their careers. They realised too late that, had they played rugby instead of kicking the ball away, a semi-final place was within their grasp.

Much has changed since then and Robinson could easily have returned to Parks but he is trying a different direction. With just five Test starts in nine caps, to Parks’ 64 caps, 23-year-old Jackson is still finding his feet and learning how to control a game at the speed and intensity of a Test match. It is doubtful whether the best place to hone such skills is a crucial World Cup match. Parks has demonstrated he has the mettle to win big games over the past two years but opposing teams like facing him, largely due to his defensive frailty. So to go with Jackson is to go with new ambition.

Robinson’s problem lies in the fact that a stand-off’s success is never wholly defined by his own performance. Jackson may release his back line and create more opportunities in attack than Parks but that doesn’t always mean more tries. Jackson’s consistency of pass and kick have to improve, the pack has to give him the chance to attack the gain-line and his team-mates have to be more clinical in their breakdown work.

Robinson is a winner, an ambitious coach who will not settle for matching his predecessors’ less than 50 per cent success rate. But he is also not ready to be pragmatic and play for a narrow win. Scotland have won five games in a row but Robinson knows only one of the nations beaten, Ireland, were ranked above Scotland. He wants better than that for Scotland, genuine scalps in Argentina and England in a World Cup, and believes in a fast, off-loading game that brings Nick De Luca, Max Evans, Sean Lamont and Richie Gray onto the ball at speed.

With a more competitive squad than at any point over the past decade, this is the time to challenge the players.

It is up to Jackson and his team-mates to prove they are worthy of Robinson’s faith.