Should Andy Robinson go after this 6 nations? (6th Vote)

21st Century Schizoid Man wrote:Billy,

it was one of Robinson's 60 minute pre-planned moves that never, ever work. Look on Rennie's face said it all. Robinson must go and soon !

caz wrote:Anyone seen The Scotsman this morning? Gregor Townsend taking over at Glasgow.

I have no idea what to think about this.

• That is an hour

• That is how long I will be angry before I explode

• That is when I will make pre arranged changes, without actually looking what is happening on the pitch

• hat is when I will start my - we was robbed speach for te end of the game

Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler wrote:yes. he foolishly listened to 606 and picked a bunch of kids who run around like headless chickens.

joking aside yes enough is enough,how much hes to blame isnt the point now...scotland need some magic.
Lancaster would be a good call if he isnt given a job he wants to keep with England ( dont forget he'll still be saxons coach even if hes not on mallets top team)

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:AR's time was up the moment he picked Parks against England. The 6N is all about momentum, we needed to beat England but he picked the wrong team and the wrong tactics to play them.

Andy Robinson’s future on line as sorry Scots lose again

By DAVID FERGUSON

IF SCOTLAND coach Andy Robinson felt the pressure was intense on Saturday night after his side’s abject performance against Ireland in the RBS Six Nations Championship, he will have to steel himself this week for a new world of grief in the build-up to another wooden spoon decider in Rome.

Every Scotland coach has been here, enduring barren runs and moments of great promise brought crashing to earth by a below-par display, and after two poor tournaments the former England and British and Irish Lions chief is now at the point in a third of staring at a weekend in which his future as Scotland boss is on the line.

Robinson’s record now stands at 12 wins in 28 Test matches and, worse, just two victories in 14 Six Nations games. It may be better by ratio of overall wins to defeats than his predecessor Frank Hadden’s, who finished a four-year spell with 16 victories in 41 Tests – he did triumph in six championship games out of 20 – but even if Scotland win their final match away to Italy on Saturday, it would be the sixth tournament in a row with just one Scottish success. Not the statistics of progress.

Hadden and the SRU parted company in 2009 after the Scot had led his side through three such championships with little evidence of improvement, and on Saturday night in Dublin a forlorn Robinson was grappling for positives with which to prepare for a best-case scenario that continues that trend.

SRU president Ian McLauchlan elucidated what everyone else is thinking, that the pressure on Robinson to uncover a result in Rome could hardly be greater. But he is fervent in his belief that Scotland will win for only a third time in Italy, and first since 2006.

Robinson has, however, added to the pressure through bringing in new coaches in Australian duo Scott Johnson and Matt Taylor, neither of whom have a track record in international rugby, and dispensing with the defence chief Graham Steadman and young attack coach, Gregor Townsend, whom he was grooming as a potential head coach in years to come.

Robinson insisted privately a month ago that the suggestion in some quarters that he had served notice on Townsend in the same way he had Steadman was inaccurate, and that he hoped Townsend would remain with him for the duration of his time as Scotland’s head coach, possibly even replacing him after 2015.

He accepted that there was pressure on them all to turn around Scotland’s run of defeats and as such no-one’s future was secure. The knives were out in some sections of the media for Townsend from the start of the campaign, and they were sharpened after the opening two losses.

Robinson was also eyeing the British and Irish Lions post going into this championship, but knew that he needed a minimum of three wins to stand a chance of displacing favourite Warren Gatland for the 2013 tour, so when Scotland lost to France and that was blown he appears to have changed tack.

Johnson was viewed as a mentor for Townsend, but also a caretaker boss should Robinson be given a year off on Lions’ duty. He will now replace the winning Lions fly-half as attack coach. Taylor, a former team-mate of Townsend from their days at the Borders, made an impression on Robinson in helping to set up Scotland’s World Cup training camp in his native Queensland, and with his defensive methods with Super Rugby champions the Reds.

Glasgow coach Sean Lineen was only informed last week of the plan to replace him with Townsend, and the attack coach apparently offered the position just days before that. Lineen accepted a new SRU role, now being hurriedly formalised, working to identify Scots-qualified players around the world and nurturing age-grade talent, which leaked out almost as soon as he had said ‘yes’.

Robinson formulated the plan with SRU director of performance rugby, Graham Lowe, and with the full support of chief executive Mark Dodson, but the speed of the move smacks of a sudden lack of faith in Townsend within the Test environment or an attempt to protect his protégé from the fall-out should he be sacked or quit the Scotland post.

There is also a fear that the shift now could damage progress made, however small, by the Scotland and Glasgow squads. With the national squad, Robinson is taking away an attack coach whose ideas players were beginning to grasp and enthuse about – prior to Saturday at least – and replacing him with an Aussie in Johnson who has had a chequered past and a reputation forged on innovative, ‘blue-sky’ ideas.

He may be a terrific addition, but, setting aside the fact that we heard similar talk when Australian Matt Williams endured a short and contentious period in charge, 2004-5, as his approach jarred with Scottish players and coaches, it promises more upheaval three years from the next World Cup.

Townsend has through that period worked to inculcate new attacking methods in players with the support of Edinburgh and Glasgow coaches, and regular skills coaching at those clubs on top of the national squad camps.

The quality of attack has improved and, against France, brought a growing agreement that increased line-breaks, improved threat and tries were signs of progress, while the emergence of skilled youngsters such as Stuart Hogg and Lee Jones, who have worked closely with Townsend, offered fresh hope.

It suffered a severe jolt in Dublin on Saturday when the Scots fell back into old habits, dominating possession for spells but failing to seriously trouble Ireland’s defence. But, as depressed as they were afterwards, senior players remained strong in their belief that the team was capable of more now than a few years ago.

However, with Townsend joining Glasgow in June, how long will Johnson need, from when he steps in on the summer tour, to change players and coaches to his way of thinking? Bear in mind he is expected to remain largely in Australia outside international periods.

Robinson is under pressure for what he achieves, or fails to achieve, with Scotland and not ultimately how his decisions affect Glasgow, but he is starting to run short of time to make a difference and re-drafting coaching teams will not lighten that.

‘Andy knows he faces scrutiny, everyone is under review’

FORMER Scotland and Lions prop and now SRU president Ian McLauchlan returned from Saturday’s horror show in Dublin admitting that Scotland coach Andy Robinson was under pressure to save his job.

Scotland have won just two matches in Robinson’s three Six Nations Championships to date, with winless Italy now waiting in Rome for their final match of 2012. Scotland have lost on their last two visits to the Italian capital and Saturday’s meeting is in the Stadio Olimpico for the first time, the Italians having moved to the home of Roma and Lazio football clubs while the Stadio Flaminio is being upgraded.

Italy sold out the stadium with over 80,000 supporters for the visit of England last month and came close to claiming their first English scalp. There are already over 72,000 tickets sold for the finale with Scotland and rising expectations of another Italian win that would hand Scotland the wooden spoon.

McLauchlan, who said before the championship got under way that failure to improve on one win should cost Robinson his job, said yesterday: “Everyone is under review, just like every job, and Andy [Robinson] knows that he faces the same scrutiny.

“This is a huge game for all the players and all the coaches. There is no hiding away from that. International rugby is about results. We have improved massively, and I think everyone can see that, especially in the way we played against Wales and France, but everyone else has improved and the gap between us and them is still there. So, we have to improve more to be successful and that’s what is demanded of the coaches and players.”

McLauchlan captained a strong Scotland side throughout the 1970s, winning ten of 18 Test matches as skipper, including a win in Dublin that ended a five-year wait for an away win. However, he also endured 11 games without victory at the end of his 43-cap career and ‘claimed’ three wooden spoons, albeit before Italy came along, so also has sympathy for the players.

“The difference is that we could go back to our clubs and play between each game; it wasn’t back-to-back as it is now,” he said. “So, we got some relief, whereas for these guys it is mental and physical torture.

“But that’s professional rugby and we have a very good squad. I have said that they are all under pressure, and so they are with no wins, but if you’re asking me now, after what we’ve seen, if I back Andy to come through this, the answer is yes; 100 per cent.

“This weekend will be a huge, huge challenge, and the Italians will be well up for it, but our boys are also up for it because everybody realises that we can’t go through the season with nothing. The players are too good to go through the season with nothing and Andy is too good a coach to go through the season without a win.

“I think we will see a real performance from them in Rome, and then we will go into a summer tour where the team could pick up and win a few games, and then we come back for an autumn Test series with great opportunity.

“There will be reviews of the performances by the SRU at the end of the championship, but I don’t think we’ll be talking about the coach this time next week because I’m confident that he’ll take us into a winning situation on Saturday and there will be a huge weight lifted off everyone’s shoulders.”

gowales wrote:The only reason i think he should go is so you can start from scratch. But the performances have been good enough for Scotland's standard (no offence) for him to stay imo.

21st Century Schizoid Man wrote:George,

I am adapting my position :-

Townsend must stay at Scotland and continue the splendid job he is doing there. The quick, incisive attacks by our backs etc, etc etc

Graeme Morrison has described Scotland's Six Nations loss to Ireland as a "hiccup" and called on his team-mates to prove their worth against Italy in Rome on Saturday.

The Glasgow centre wants a clean slate as they seek to avoid the wooden spoon with victory over the Azzurri at the Stadio Olympico.

"We've just got to believe. We're not a bad team overnight," Morrison said. "Okay, we've not won a game but things have been progressing really well.

"Some of the rugby we've played this tournament has been some of the best I've been involved with in a Scotland shirt, so we can't really dwell on this performance too much.

"It's a hiccup on our road to something. The performances up until now have been really good so I think we'll just look at this one as a bit of an anomaly. We've just got to move on."

Scotland showed signs of promise against England, Wales and France - albeit in defeat - but failed to score in the second half in Dublin.

"We need to pick ourselves up because going over to Italy is going to be a huge encounter for us. The Italians will have an eye on that win," Morrison said.

"We're going to have to pull together. We've got a lot to play for next week and it's just picking ourselves up and going back to the drawing board and going into this week with a belief that we're going over to Italy to win."

Scotland will travel to Rome seeking to arrest a six-match winless run and earn Andy Robinson a third Six Nations win in 15 attempts. They are likely to be without wing Lee Jones, who was knocked out in the second half and spent Saturday night in hospital. The 23-year-old Edinburgh back, who was winning his fourth cap, was taken off on a stretcher following a sickening clash of heads with opposite number Andrew Trimble, which resulted in a "severe concussion", Scotland team doctor James Robson said.

Four other players were set to require further medical attention - scrum-half Mike Blair (shoulder), centre Max Evans (dead leg), flanker John Barclay (ribs) and number eight David Denton (shin bruising) - with Robinson scheduled to name his team for Rome on Wednesday.

gowales wrote:The only reason i think he should go is so you can start from scratch. But the performances have been good enough for Scotland's standard (no offence) for him to stay imo.