Letters to the Sports Editor: Time for Scottish rugby to face facts rather than play glorious failure car

DEAR SRU, players and coaching staff, I really wanted to get this off my chest.

It is nice to see you all backing each other and consoling yourselves on the agony of failing to qualify for the World Cup quarter-finals. Learning from the experience, taking positives, benefits for the future etc.

Surely Scotland has plenty of experience in losing rugby internationals, and if they have not learned from the previous multitude of defeats, why should recent results be any different?

I sincerely hope you/we do not try to paper over the cracks here. Sure, we lost two close games to England and Argentina, games we nearly won. But we didn’t win and nearly doesn’t count.

Remember that we did win two close games, games we could have lost, to the giants of Romania and Georgia. That is the real truth here – we are getting closer to those teams than we are to winning the Six Nations or beyond.

When you play three successive games at a World Cup without scoring a try, you are unlikely to win very much. We have a team which can’t score tries at the highest levels.

Even in our recent triumphs over South Africa and Australia at Murrayfield, how many tries did we score? You guessed it – none. And let’s not even think about our try-less hammering from the All Blacks last time out.

Remember when we could at least lambast England for being boring during their success, relying so much on Jonny’s boot? But look at us now, even more boring, and not even the consolation of winning matches.

Our pro club teams are generally hopeless, competitive at times, but hugely inconsistent. They are generally unloved by the public, with small crowds, little atmosphere, no history, and no success in Europe. Maybe a rethink is required. With the pro team structure wrong, the national team is unlikely to improve much.

Our Sevens team wins the lower trophies which only serves to remind you that they didn’t make the quarter-finals of the main draw at most events. Is this the best use of our limited finances? Ireland don’t play on the IRB Sevens, but they are in much better health than we are.

Surely the SRU has to look at our coaching structure, our club structures, our provinces, our playing resources. Having a dedicated attack coach for a team who cannot score tries seems a luxury we can do without.

Why isn’t a team from the national league playing in the European Challenge Cup or a National League select team, some kind of step up from domestic rugby that might just unearth some new talent? Has it been considered that investing in the top clubs in the National League might be better than pursuing the Edinburgh/Glasgow pro league debacle?

Back to the World Cup. I have watched totally outclassed teams such as Russia playing for pride and scoring considerably more tries than we did. These are the types of countries who should be proud of the efforts of their players. Or Samoa, who battled Wales and South Africa to a standstill. Or Tonga, for beating France. Or Canada, for beating Tonga. Or the USA who gave Ireland and Italy really tough games. Or Georgia, for nearly beating us, for hammering Romania, and pushing Argentina all the way.

Once again Scotland are being branded as gallant losers, which is quite common in our history. But for me, this was far from gallant. The draw opened up for us but we couldn’t take the chance to go on a run to the semis or beyond. Be it lack of talent, lack of coaching, resources or whatever.

This Scotland performance at the 2011 IRB Rugby World Cup was absolutely not good enough in any way shape or form so please don’t try to hide this with soundbites and lessons learned. Much better is that something is done about it. I wish you all every success in producing a great Scotland team one day.

DAVID GIBSON DICKIE

Dubai

United Arab Emirates

Look to rugby league and develop our skills

MUCH has been written recently about the failings of the national rugby union team without highlighting the simple fact that if even your backs struggle to take simple passes, or deliver accurate passes, under pressure, then Scotland, or any other country for that matter, is going to struggle to score tries and win matches. This would seem to be a particularly relevant assessment for a country with a small player base, such as Scotland, because even if we field our biggest and strongest side, the countries with greater playing resources will field sides to better any perceived physical advantage.

What we should be attempting to develop and exploit are handling and kicking skills in the ways these are now exploited in rugby league. Rugby union defences throughout the game have already progressed significantly through rugby league defensive coaching, and in some instances the conversion of rugby league players. With many of Scotland’s rugby players also having played football at some stage, particularly those emerging from state schools, it would seem logical to make full use of such talents rather than simply focusing on building more bulk and muscle.

However, in spite of the lack of success at all age-group levels, there still appears to be a certain arrogance at the SRU, and among many of our clubs, that there is nothing to be learned from rugby league and that the ‘old ways are best’. Until a level of objective assessment and open competition for team places is encouraged throughout our game, irrespective of family playing history, coaching education and club connections, Scottish teams will underperform relative to levels of expectation.

In contrast to the lack of progress exhibited by our rugby union teams, Edinburgh Eagles rugby league team, without much publicity by comparison, have apparently enjoyed an historic season, narrowly losing in the semi-final of the British Regional Trophy to Yorkshire’s premier team. Perhaps the video on their website (www.edinburgheagles.co.uk) showing some of the tries scored during the season just ended would be of interest to rugby union coaches interested in finding alternative ways to score tries other than simply having big guys running straight lines to try and bulldoze their way through well-organised defences!

ANDREW ALEKSANDER

Barnton Park View

Edinburgh