The 2013 6 Nations tournament now seems an oddly distant memory. Just over 3 weeks have passed and there has been plenty of time to reflect on each team's performance.
Wales won it again, putting to bed a torrid second half of 2012. England fell at the final hurdle again, throwing away the chance to win a grand slam on the final day of the tournament for the 8th time in 24 years. France had what can only be described as a major blip, Ireland suffered heavily for lack of development in the past 3 years and a horrible looking injury list and Italy continue to improve, this time adding a distinct stubbornness to their performances.
So what about Scotland?
A third place finish including back to back wins is a welcome change, of that there is no doubt, but the Scottish team and their fans shouldn't read too much into their final table position.
Middle table obscurity came because of the poor form of both Ireland and France. In the end, Scotland only won 2 matches from 5, both at home and one of which they had no real right to claim. They weren't ready for the clash at Twickenham in the opening weekend and failed to capitalise on the poor form of the French in closing weekend.
There seems to be something of a falsehood to claim that the Scots are on the rise again. Scott Johnson and his interim staff helped to stop the rot and get rid of the bad taste left by Tonga that lingered over the winter. His distinctly different, conservative and tactically defensive minded approach to that taken by Andy Robinson was to be applauded at first, but then grew tiresome as Scottish fans saw no tries against Ireland or Wales. A swell of opinion to play expansive, no holds barred rugby in Paris rose in the lead up to super Saturday, but Scotland left it too late in the game to oblige.
So a mixed tournament at best for Scotland. The perceived success of finishing third has been borne more from relief at not fighting it out to avoid the wooden spoon yet again than it is about finishing in the top half.
Is Johnson Scotland's man for the future?
Scotland still lie 10th in the IRB world rankings. That is perhaps a better measure of their overall performance. No real progress, but no regression either. A further measure will be in 3 weeks when Warren Gatland is due to announce his Lions squad to travel to Australia. How many Scot's will be included then?
With no permanent appointment to the head coaching post yet, the SRU have implied that they're not sold on Scott Johnson. It strikes me that if they were, he'd have the job by now on a permanent basis. They have had plenty of time to consider other applicants and to assess Johnson's own performance over the past 3 months to surely have made a call on it.
Scotland are a bit rudderless at the moment, basking in the windless doldrums waiting for a gust to get them going again. The permanent appointment of a positively minded, experienced head coach would provide that gust.
Some would claim that the aim of this year's 6 Nations was to prove Scotland are competitive again and to prevent a continued downward slide following a pretty dismal autumn series. If that's the case, then it's job more or less done. However, I wanted more. Scotland had an opportunity to not only save themselves, but to put others to the sword as they saw the likes of Ireland and France struggle around them. Yes, Scotland beat Ireland, but they didn't deserve to. Scotland needed to dominate that game rather than the other way around.
It's time for the Scottish team to show more than the odd glimpse, or occasional Italy style performance on a consistent basis. Lead games from the front, capitalise on poor opponents. There is precedent this season in the form of Glasgow, sitting pretty atop the RaboDirect Pro12 league. Their ruthlessness has been the key progression this year, masterminded by head coach Gregor Townsend. That all begs the question of where that ruthless streak was in the national team when Townsend was backs coach until last summer?
Scotland have a decent pool of players to pick from right now and it's time for the SRU to step up in the best interests of the national side to find a coach that can collate and focus that talent on the pitch. Personally I'm not keen on Johnson, but he hasn't done a great deal wrong. Given the potential pool of suitors, he is one of the more preferable candidates.
Who would you pick as the next Scottish national head coach?
No comments:
Post a Comment