THE SUNDAY HERALD REPORTS


Sean Lineen’s team can dazzle, but too often they are dire, so it’s time to get ruthless, finds Alasdair Reid



If Glasgow’s familiar black and blue colours seem particularly pertinent around the mid-point of a season that has been such a thoroughly bruising experience, it would be more appropriate still were they to turn out in hair shirts for the remainder of the campaign. Listening to Sean Lineen articulate the frustrations of a side who have lurched from the dazzling to the dreadful on an all-too-regular basis, you half suspect he may have placed an order for them already.
Certainly, there was no shirking of responsibility, either personal or collective, when the 44-year-old coach sat down to discuss his team’s wayward recent form at their Whitecraigs training base. Lineen exudes niceness at the sort of Palinesque levels that probably tempt elderly ladies to knit jumpers for him, but there was a perceptible anger in his terse summary of his outlook at the moment: “There are plenty of excuses, but it’s results we need.”

That requirement has become espec ially obvious after a run of five defeats and towards the tail end of a Heineken Cup campaign in which, for the second year in succession, Glasgow have failed to win a game. This afternoon’s tilt against Bourgoin at Firhill offers the prospect of a meagre sliver of consol ation, but even a victory is unlikely to obliterate the bitter memory of last week’s lame capitulation to Leinster, a performance well encap sulated by the respected Irish writer Brendan Fanning’s comment that Glasgow might be a nice team to watch, but they are also a nice team to play against.

It is all the more maddening for Lineen that Glasgow finished last season’s Celtic League campaign as Scotland’s top side, a position earned by a series of performances that just ified real confidence going into this season.

“Yes, we were gearing up for a big season last summer,” Lineen agreed, “and it’s fair to say that we’ve underperformed – coaches, players, everyone. It’s been disappointing, and although there have been a few positive signs recently we still need to be a lot more ruthless.”

On the management side, the need to show a harsher edge already seems certain to find expression in a summer cull that will leave a number of players looking for employment elsewhere. That factor might lend a whiff of desperation to the performances of some of the more peripheral performers who will be on Glasgow duty at Firhill today, but it might also fill nostrils with the scent of opportunity, especially against a Bourgoin side whose eagerness to roll over and play dead before the conclusion of last season’s Heineken Cup pool stages brought a hefty home defeat by Treviso, a 92-17 hammering from Leinster, and a rap across the knuckles from the tournament’s organisers.

As the emergence of back-row stars John Beattie and Jon Barclay testifies, Lineen and head coach Hugh Campbell have been willing to give youth a chance this season, but they have had to pay a price for their side’s callow look. “It’s a young team, so we don’t have an abundance of leaders,” Lineen explained. “On top of which, I think we’ve lacked a hard edge mentally. We try to play a brand of rugby, 15-man rugby, but individuals let themselves down with silly errors and poor decisions on the ball. When we can’t get our phases going we lose focus and heads drop. We’ve got good players, but we need them all to be running in the same direction.

“It should hurt players when these things happen, because it’s their job. They want to be good at their jobs, just as we want to be as coaches. At the moment, it’s fair to say we’re just not doing our jobs well enough. We’re underperforming. It’s not through lack of effort, but we need to refocus and climb back up again.”

Of course, the picture is not entirely bleak in a season in which Glasgow have also inflicted a heavy defeat on Celtic League leaders Munster and contrived a ruinous performance against Edinburgh that ended with a 46-6 humiliation of their rivals from the other end of the M8. The perverse consequence of those successes has been a muddying of the waters as far as any analysis of Glasgow’s ills is concerned, but there is no matching uncertainty about what their target for the remainder of the season must be. If they fail to overtake the revitalised Border Reivers before the end of the Celtic League campaign, then the subsequent ranking of Scotland’s three sides would mean today’s match against Bourgoin would be their last involvement in the Heineken Cup for at least another season.

The prospect horrifies Lineen: “It would hurt to miss out on the Heineken Cup next season,” he said. “That’s the competition you want to be in because that’s where you learn and improve. You’re up against the best team and the best players, you’re in the best stadiums and you’re playing in front of the biggest crowds. That’s where you have to be.

“At the moment, I’m not even entertaining the prospect of missing out. We’re barely halfway through the season, so there’s a long way to go and a lot that can happen. The challenge is to finish ahead of the Borders, ahead of Edinburgh if we can, and that’s going to mean winning a lot of games.”




There is also the challenge of maintaining focus as the Celtic League makes way for the RBS Six Nations Championship. Although the two competitions do not clash, and even if Scotland coach Frank Hadden has a refresh ingly healthy appreciation of the needs of the domestic sides, the intertwining of club and country concerns will inevitably produce tension. Not least, you might suspect, for Lineen himself, as one of Hadden’s assistants at Test level, although he argues he can accommodate the demands of the scenario.

“We’ve had a look at it and we’ve worked out a timetable,” he said. “It’s all about time management, and as it seemed to work out during the autumn internationals then I don’t really have any fear it won’t work out again. Sure, there’s a lot of pressure on your time, but if you’re organised you can fit it all in. I’m a complete rugby-head anyway, so I don’t mind having so much to do.”

The return of Lineen to an inter national arena he graced with 29 appearances as a player between 1989 and 1992 might seem long overdue, and it is startling to consider that he is still the only member of Scotland’s 1990 Grand Slam side who is a front-line full-time coach. While he explains that as a function of his sheer passion for the game, he wears his obsession with a light good humour.

There is an obvious zest about his involvement with Scotland. “It is a real buzz, no doubt about that,” he smiled. “I think Frank has developed a tremendous environment and the players are buying into his ideas. They’re playing with a lot of confidence.”

Of course, confirmation of Todd Blackadder’s intention to return to New Zealand at the end of this season has fuelled speculation that Lineen will strengthen his tie to Murrayfield by assuming the role of head coach for Edinburgh. However, beyond the admission that he has applied for the post and that he would relish such a senior role, it is, understandably, not a subject he is anxious to discuss now.

Lineen has become such a respected figure in the game that it is easy to forget just how controversial was his selection for Scotland in 1989, only a few months after his arrival from New Zealand. Then, he was accused of being a mercenary, but he has since put down firm roots and rules out any possibility of a return to the land of his birth.

For himself, at least. His two sons, nine-year-old Cameron and six-year-old Jacob, could yet become All Blacks. But only, he says, if they aren’t good enough to play for Scotland.

22 January 2006

This article was posted on 22-Jan-2006, 12:31 by Hugh Barrow.