Kevin FERRIE reports in the Herald


Jackson or Parks? You pays your money . . .
Published on 1 Mar 2011


The lift Dan Parks gave Scotland on taking the field against Ireland on Sunday raised more questions than answers for the team’s management.

Far from the stolid, one-dimensional stand-off he is portrayed as, the Cardiff Blues player looked dynamic as well as decisive as he took the game to the Irish in the final quarter of the match.

Afterwards, Andy Robinson, Scotland’s coach, admitted to being pleased with Parks’ performance and said that, like Sean Lamont before him, he had made a case for a rapid recall.

“I thought he did well coming off the bench in terms of the way that he found the territory,” he said.

“We’ll pick a team to play against England and what’s important for us is that the half-backs are now starting to become interchangeable in the way they play.”

That observation is fair enough as far as it goes, implying that all the front-line contenders, with Chris Cusiter, hopefully, to return to the fray in time for the World Cup, are performing at a high standard, leaving the coaches to choose tactically between playing styles.

Yet there is also a belief that Scotland are capable of winning more than their share of possession and have the capacity with a combination of elusive and powerful runners, to make line breaks. So how does one explain the shocking statistic that Scotland have now played eight matches at Murrayfield without scoring a try?

The role of key decision- makers in creating scores has been shown to be crucial in this campaign, from Francois Trinh-Duc’s extraordinary through the legs pass to send Imanol Harinordoquy clear against Scotland, to James Hook’s prop-swatting break that set up Shane Williams’ opener at Murrayfield, to Toby Flood’s eye for a gap that has allowed him to give Chris Ashton a succession of run-in scores.

On Sunday, Ronan O’Gara showed his killer instincts when close to the line, too, scoring the match-winning try, while the now-veteran Irishman’s generalship was vital in forming the game’s shape in the first hour.

As Brian O’Driscoll, Ireland’s captain, put it when asked about the performance of his long-time Ireland and Lions team-mate: “Excuse me for not sounding shocked that he pulled out another big performance in a green jersey.”

Yet when Parks came on he demonstrated that he is capable of doing many of the same things as O’Gara, a player whose flakiness was a big part of the reason they lost the 2001 Foot and Mouth game at Murrayfield. A decade on and O’Gara is a very different proposition.

That would suggest Scotland must now invest in youth, but the reality is that O’Gara has become the player he has because he has spent his career behind the rampaging Munster and Ireland locks and back-row men who have allowed him to do so much on the front foot.

Tempting as it is, then, to see O’Gara’s development as an argument in favour of sticking with Ruaridh Jackson, who performed reasonably well overall on his first Test start, there are other factors to be considered. Some, particularly those most desperate to be proved right in their constant criticisms of Parks, got very excited about how Jackson played in his 15 minutes against the All Blacks and when scoring the match-winning goal against Samoa a couple of weeks later.

However, Parks’ performance off the bench showed the folly of jumping to such conclusions based on cameo performances. Fired up as he clearly was on Sunday, that he could impart as much urgency as he did was helped by two major factors. One of those cannot be replicated at the start of games, namely that he was up against relatively tired opponents so was not under the sort of pressure from the Irish defence that he would normally be.

The other consideration, however, is that Scotland collectively lifted their performance and began to run with conviction, ensuring Parks was moving forward as he took the ball.

Comparing like with like, then, sticking with the younger man would also seem to have more to do with speculation than merit.

There have, too, been many references to Jackson’s youthfulness when he is actually four years older than the teenager who rivals him for his place at Glasgow Warriors, Duncan Weir.

To offer context, John Rutherford, Scotland’s greatest stand-off, was slightly older than Jackson when making his Test debut in 1979. Furthermore, Jackson has missed most of a season through injury and spent another in the SRU academy when he should have been working with Glasgow, so is arguably younger than his years in development terms. Then again, by the age of 23, Craig Chalmers had steered Scotland through a grand slam campaign and to a World Cup semi-final, which perhaps brings us back to Weir.

There is something of the young Chalmers in the cocky, pugnacious demeanour of the barrel-chested 19-year-old. Since his comeback from injury a couple of weeks ago Weir has looked far from the finished article, making plenty of mistakes in his game management. Yet he oozes self-belief and is learning very fast.

If, as Robinson claims, all his attention is on winning the next match, then Glasgow’s past rather than their future would seem to have most to offer right now.

This article was originally posted on 1-Mar-2011, 07:46 by Hugh Barrow.
Last updated by Hugh Barrow on 1-Mar-2011, 07:47.