If Not Toony - Who?

ON THOSE odd occasions when I reflect on what it means to be Scottish, I tend to find solace in the wise words – often quoted on here – of Irvine Welsh, as delivered by Ewan McGregor in his role as Mark Renton, in 'Trainspotting'.

Yes, it normally is shite being Scottish, particularly after one of our International teams has been turned over. We are a colonised nation, with a significant percentage of our population quite happy to be – to again quote 'Renton's Rant' - “colonised by wankers”. So when, as is the case today, we have members of what the most-significant pro-Independence website calls the BPHB (that's the Bonnie Purple Heather Brigade) wailing, gnashing teeth and wanting various painful tortures inflicted on Gregor Townsend, Finn Russell and the majority of the losing team in Dublin. Well, I tend to switch off.

Look, all things being equal, the current Irish team will beat us nine times our of ten. They are a better team, better-organised and better-managed. Less than six months ago, they beat us 36-14 in a World Cup pool game. Yesterday, with home advantage, they beat us 17-13.

This century, we have faced the Irish 32 times, and have won a mere 6 of these games. We last won in Dublin, at Croke Park, 23-20, in 2010. We have not won on their home ground, since it was still called Lansdowne Road, in 1998 – 25 years ago.

This century, we have visited the Dublin stadium 13 times, losing every game, the median score in those 13 games is Ireland 30 – Scotland 14. so yes, yesterday we fell a smidgen off our usual scoring, but, we didn't half improve our defence.

Perhaps the Irish have made mistakes since Rugby Union went Open in 1995, but, they have learned from their errors, made the necessary changes and put their international team in the best place it has been in the 150 years or so of international rugby. We are still stumbling around in the dark looking for a system which works, and blaming everyone but ourselves when it doesn't.

Now we are scrapping Super Rugby – a tier of the game which has, in its less than five years of operation, sent 14 players on to professional contracts – even though we managed to fuck-up its implementation, and the way it was run. What might it have achieved if the SRU had been capable of managing it properly?

We are going back to a mainly club-based game, aye, yet again that most-influential sector of our game – The Aye Beens – have carried the day. I despair of Scottish Rugby, just as I despair of most areas of Scottish Sport.

I feel for Gregor Townsend, I do not feel I am qualified to judge how good a coach he is, but, in what we keep being told is: “A results-driven business” - his results have held up well when compared to any of his predecessors. Maybe we should accept, in a sport where it's all about how good we feel about our individual clubs, being International Team Head Coach is something of a poisoned chalice.

And, while I am on the subject, time to again ask the old question: ”If not Toony – who?”

Here's another question: “If not the current squad – what players can we call-up to improve things?”

In all, 30 players got on the pitch for Scotland in the five games of the 2024 Guinness Six Nations:

Pierre Schoeman, George Turner, Zander Fagerson, Richie Gray, Scott Cummings, Luke Crosbie, Jamie Ritchie, Matt Fagerson, Ben White,Finn Russell, Duhan van der Merwe, Sione Tuipulotu, Huw Jones, Kyle Steyn, Kyle Rowe, Ewan Ashman, Alec Hepburn, Elliott Millar-Mills, Sam Skinner, Jack Dempsey, George Horne, Cameron Redpath, Harry Paterson, Andy Christie, Blair Kinghorn, Rory Darge, Ali Price, Stafford McDowall, Rory Sutherland and Javan Sebastian.

Ben Healy sat on the bench but didn't get on, while:

Rory Hutchison, Ross McCann, Aaron Reed, Ross Thompson, Adam Hastings, Jamie Bhatti, WP Nell, Will Hurd, Glen Young, Marshall Sykes, Alex Craig, Alex Samuel, Max Williamson, Josh Bayliss, Hamish Watson, Magnus Bradbury and Ewan Miller were in the training squads at various times.

Darcy Graham, Ollie Smith, Johnny Gray and Cameron Henderson were long-term injured, while the likes of Mark Bennett, James Lang, Chris Harris, Johnny Matthews, Dave Cherry, Allan Dell, Oli Kebble and Matt Scott appear to now be firmly in the “former internationalists” category.

That's 60 players – four complete XVs, I have named. Who, outwith these 60, could be considered for the current Scotland XV? We don't have the depth or the range of choice open to some other international coaches, so I fail to see who else might be able to get that extra small difference which could get us to where some Toony critics seem to think Scotland's international team should be.

The Summer Tour might give us a chance to partially re-set things. Surely, from these 60 named players, we can select a squad to go to the Americas and return with four morale-boosting wins.

Toony could even decide to name his core “certain to be picked if fit” squad and leave them at home to have a restful summer, after what amounts to a year of constant rugby. That would give the alternates a chance to show what they could do, and leave us in better nick to further refine the squad in the Autumn, prior to the 2025 Six Nations.

He maybe needs to try something along these lines, to give us the best chance of improving moving ahead.

Other suggestions are welcome, but, after the disappointment of this campaign, doing nothing other than the same-old, same-old is not an option.