THE HERALD REPORTS

State of the union
KEVIN FERRIE, Chief Rugby Writer March 24 2009
Pressure has been mounting throughout recent weeks for Frank Hadden to be removed from the post of Scotland's head coach, but the key to the way forward is for calm heads to prevail and sound decisions to be made.

On the face of it, a run of three successive RBS 6 Nations campaigns in which only a single match has been won in each looks as if it should be decisive.

It has not been a case of Hadden being given time as much as having earned it with crucial wins over Italy at the 2007 World Cup, England in last year's Six Nations and Argentina in the second Test last summer.


However, that time appears to have run out, the talk of progress and promises of jam tomorrow are wearing thin and a number of key areas must be rigorously examined as the SRU hierarchy consider the way forward, not least their own contribution to the national team's problems.

Under review should be the following:

HADDEN'S POSITION
The job of the head coach and his staff is to select the right players, prepare the team as well as they can and motivate them to perform at their best. Questions have been raised over all three this season.
The coaches say the players are good enough, but selections have been controversial throughout the Six Nations, starting with the way Ally Hogg, long considered a Scotland captain in the making, was selected out of position, then completely discarded for the rest of the tournament after that proved to be a wrong call.

It ended with John Barclay, another who is expected to lead his country sooner rather than later, being made scapegoat for the defeat by Ireland.

In between times there have been issues, one way or another, regarding the treatment of Ben Cairns, Jason White, Ally Dickinson, Al Kellock and Kelly Brown.

In terms of preparation, Hadden claims on the one hand that the team is as well prepared as possible, but on the other maintains an excuse for failure in his claim that Scotland and Italy suffer most from the regulations that prevent national teams from withdrawing players from club action the week before Tests.

Those rules are not going to change, so if he believes they must before Scotland has a decent chance of beating better teams, then he must hand over to someone who does not, even if that individual is deluding himself.

In terms of motivation, one of the most glaring deficiencies of Scotland teams this season has been the way they have returned for the second half compared with their opponents.

Half-time is the coaches' best chance to analyse what is going on, feed the right information into players, then make them believe they are then set to go on and win matches. Scotland's third quarter performances have been dire.

BACK-ROOM TEAM
Rather than take the blame last year, Hadden was allowed to stay in his job while George Graham and Alan Tait, his previous assistants, carried the can. He appointed a new management team for this season whose performances must also be closely examined.
Conceding just nine tries in this campaign compared with 13 last season means Graham Steadman, the defence coach, has statistics on his side and few would dispute that he can legitimately claim to have strengthened Scotland's defensive resolve.

In attack, however, Hadden's hunch of recruiting Gregor Townsend, who had never been a full-time backs coach, was only ever going to be right if, with better weaponry available than to any Scotland team in at least a decade and probably much more, the team proved productive. Four tries were scored in five Tests, two of them against Italy.

Up front, the selections and performances of several players have been bewildering and for that Mike Brewer, a strong personality who has clearly heavily influenced Hadden's thinking, must take a major share of the blame.

THE HIERARCHY
Gordon McKie, the SRU's chief executive, has been in fire-fighting mode over recent months, or at least he should have been. Complaints have been pouring in from members of the public and from clubs about their treatment by the SRU. It would be understandable if he has taken his eye off the ball, but not forgivable, because it was his decision to do without a director of rugby.
The battle over the regulations probably was not winnable at any point, but it was McKie who lost it from the SRU's point of view. If he shares Hadden's belief that Scotland cannot have a fair chance of competing without control of their players, then it is his job to find the money to do as Ireland and Wales have done and get the majority of their best players back home. All three of Scotland's professional head coaches, Hadden, Sean Lineen at Glasgow Warriors and Andy Robinson at Edinburgh, have made it clear that they are struggling to be competitive with the nature of the squads they have.

ORTHODOX SOLUTIONS
Lineen or Robinson or both are clearly the front-runners because they are already in the Scottish system. Yet both have just about got into their stride in their club roles and are invaluable there. Furthermore, there would have to be reservations about either stepping up right now.
Lineen has repeatedly said he is still learning the role of head coach, but it is highly unlikely that he would fancy working full-time as an assistant to Robinson. For his part, Robinson has been an international coach and failed. From an outside perspective he looks a great coach but not necessarily quite as good a manager and selector.

If there was a Test tour coming up this summer, then Robinson would be the obvious man to take over, just as he and Lineen filled in so well as assistants in Argentina last summer. However, there is no Scotland Test scheduled until next November so there is plenty of time to consider options.

From inside the system, a third option would be Brewer, but the reservations stated above would only be magnified if he was promoted.

OUTSIDE THE BOX
What seems to be required, particularly in the short-term, is a fresh approach from someone who can walk into the Scotland dressing room and command instant respect.
In that regard it has been suggested that, arguably, the greatest head coach in Test history, who has Scottish heritage, could be talked out of retirement to take on the job. Rod Macqueen has experience of the sort of job required. In 1996 he was asked to take charge of the new Super 12 province, the ACT Brumbies, and was given a combination of raw youngsters and discarded veterans to work with. The following season he took them to the Super 12 final, earning him the Australia head coach's job.

Taking over a side that was in disarray, his ratio of wins to campaigns was incomparable as he won 80% of his Tests, unheard of in the history of a country where rugby is, at best, the third biggest winter sport. That included lifting the 1999 World Cup, the 2000 Tri-Nations Championship, the first time the Wallabies had won it, and the 2001 Test series against the British & Irish Lions.

In retirement from coaching he has remained involved in rugby, working on the controversial Experimental Law Variations. The Herald understands he has hinted that he would consider helping out the land of his fathers in this time of national rugby emergency.

Another powerful individual whose presence would have a huge impact on Scottish players and who would likely have a very different approach, is Dean Richards, who never played on a losing side against Scotland in seven meetings with them between 1986 and 1996.

His coaching methods led to him being ousted at his home club Leicester after he had led them to two Heineken Cup wins and four successive English Premiership wins, but he has now returned to the English Premiership with Harlequins and has turned the former flash Harry team into one of the country's most effective sides.

The key point to all of the above is that there is no need for knee jerk measures, but there is time for every contributory factor to be examined, for the role of management and executives to be thoroughly scrutinised and for the SRU as a whole to get things right ahead of the autumn Tests.

This article was posted on 24-Mar-2009, 08:02 by Hugh Barrow.