I Hear We Won (Again)

That cup-winning feeling

 

AND WHEN that great scorer comes to write against your name, he'll ask not if you won or lost, but, how you played the game.

Scotland didn't play particularly well against England yesterday, but, they still did enough to win; which has to be pleasing. England isn't a partcularly good team at the momenty, but, we need not allow that fact to dilute the pleasure of having beaten them four games in a row, for the first time in half a century.

We can now look forward to hopefully a good win in Rome, and hopefully can put our recent poor form in Dublin behind us in our final game.

That we had the more-settled side played a big part in our win. As Robert Kitson pointed-out in The Guardian, yesterday was the twelfth time Scotland has started with a midfield trio of Finn Russell, Sione Tuipulotu and Huw Jones, it was the first time their immediate opponents had played together. We had more club units – a benefit of having fewer professional teams, and those we have are centrally-controlled.

We may have abandoned Toony's “fastest team in world rugby” aspirations, but, we still play at a higher tempo than England, much of whose game seems to be built around rugby by numbers. Our guys look more capable of playing what they saw in front of them, rather than to a play book.

And, of course, we had MacMessi pulling the strings. Like the wee Argentinian, Finn doesn't go into his shell if a move doesn't come off, he's just as likely to try it again seconds later – he never lets the fact he's playing in a “must-win” international bother him. That quality is rare.

OK Finn and Duhan van der Merwe grabbed the headlines, but, I want to mention one of the often-overlooked “journeymen” in our ranks. I think this was the game in which Scott Cummings finally came of age as a Scotland player.

The pre-game guff from the Master Race was about the power of the visiting pack – well big Scott, with some wonderful individual touches, and with the ever-reliable Grant Gilchrist out-played the vastly over-rated Maro Itoje and both Chessum and Martin.

The London-centric media - for example, Sam Warburton during the BBC broadcast - talked-up the power of the English props, totally forgetting the fact, none of the four can scrummage worth a damn.

Sam, you can say: “Joe Marler is the best scrummaging prop in England”. As often as you like, but, he never has been and now never will be a front-line, international prop.

Yes, Engladnd won a coule of scrum penalties, but all this proved was either: Andrew Brace guessed wrongly, or, he was at his usual default setting, which we know so-well from BKT United Rugby Championship games: “I'm giving the Jocks nothing and will penalise them at will”. I favour the second scenario.

For instance, I lost count of the number of times Brace warned Itoje for his shennanigans at rucks, but then failed to penalise him. Whereas, one slip at a ruck from any Scotsman and we were penalised. He may be Welsh-born, but, he's right up there as a “blind Irish referee”.

A final view on the television coverage, I appreciate Dylan Hartley was only in there to give an additional English slant to the coverage, but, his myopic view of the game grated after a very short time.

Any way, at the end of the day, we won without playing as well as we can, but, we had enough against very-average opposition.

DISAPPOINTING though the final result was, the performance of the losing Scotland Under-20 team against England at The Hive wasn't the worst thing about the television broadcast. That honour is reserved for the abysmal efforts of commentator Claire Thomas.

OK, hand up, I've said this before and will almost certainly say it again, but, she was honkingly poor. And, to repeat myself again, maybe it's because we were spoiled for years by having The Voice of Rugby guide us through games, but, when compared to Bill McLaren, Ms Thomas is shite. In fact, compared to the excellent Nigel Starmer-Smith, or even the terrible Inverdale – she's still shite.

Both of these past talking heads were English and proud of that fact, but, not even Inverdale at his worst grated to the extent Thomas does. I appreciate the BBC is firmly in the iron grip of “The Wokerati” but, do we really have to have a woman, who doesn't have a clue, inflicted on us. Compared to the likes of Gabby Logan, Claire Balding, or oor ain Hazel Irvine and Lee Mackenzie, Thomas is putting back the cause of female equality in broadcasting by years.

However, over-promoted female commentators wasn't the only annoying feature of the game, the display of some of the Scotland team left a lot to be desired. OK, I know the conditions weren't great, but, I am not going to join in the rush to blame Kenny Murray and his coaching staff for the fact we lost. Kenny has proved in a coaching career with Cartha-Queen's Park, Ayr, Glasgow Warriors and now Scotland, he's a good coach.

But, at the end of the day, he can only work with what he is given and within the structure of the Scottish Rugby Union. As I, and other rugby commentators have been pointing-out for years, our player development structure is clearly not fit for purpose, and hasn't been for long and weary. Until we sort out the grass roots, our elite young players will continue to struggle.

The inability of some of the Scottish lads – whose commitment and energy I could not fault – to do the basics, was embarrassing.

One of my elder brother's class-mates at Primary School went on to win youth honours for Scotland at football. While he was never full international class, he was a solid journeyman professional who played in the top flight in England, before giving such sterling service to the game as a grass roots youth coach, he was made MBE. I remember him telling me he could tell a Scottish player who had been brought-up in the English club system from another Scot, brought-up in the Scottish club system by their first and second touches. The English-trained players were technically more-proficient.

I fear the same criticism can be laid at too-many of our so-called elite young players, they simply lack the grounding in the basics. Maybe it's something to do with the make-up of the Scots – we are competitors, we would rather play and win, than spend time refining our core skills.

I can recall an American Basketball coach, working with a Scottish club, which at the time had arguably the best young player set-up in the country, raging against how he simply could not get some of his players to work on their failings.

If asked to do drills intended to correct failings, they would do it for a wee while, then revert to concentrating on the things they already did well. There seemed to be a feat of going beyond their comfort zone. Maybe we are seeing this too in our young rugby players.

Of course, the “clannishness” of Scottish sporting life may well be another factor. Too often (as witness this week's Inter-District squads announcement) Scottish coaches and selectors tend to favour the guys they know. If you went to the “right” school, or played for the “right” club – you had more chance of advancement. It has ever been thus up here.

We seem to have a lengthy record of the wrong guys getting promoted as coaches, promoting the wrong players into the wrong system. Or am I being over-critical?

Sure, it's easy to blame Kenny Murray and his coaches – but maybe we should be looking elsewhere for the failures, like, at the head of the house, where the big decision-makers have been getting decisions wrong for years and are continuing to do so.

But, the fact is, the pinnacle of youth rugby is the Under-20 team, and right now, Scotland isn't dining at the top table, and, from what I can see, is unlikely to be doing so for some time.

There are guys making a good living from the game inside Murrayfield who are clearly not fit for purpose – can we maybe hope for a new CEO who will cut out the dead wood and lead us to a brighter, better future?

If we don't clean and drain the swamp soon, it will be another forecasting gold medal for Private James Frazer.