Success Is Partly In The Mind

WE HAVE seen all sorts of excuses, reasons, theories or downright gibberish spouted following the end of the Guinness Six Nations at the weekend. Of all the views as to how Scotland managed to finish fourth, perhaps the one which has majority support is – just maybe we lack the mental toughness which separates the winners from the also-rans,

If there is any truth in this, in fact, even if that truth is only a small part of the wider malaise, it's probably easily fixed – get a competent Sports Psychologist in to get the players' heads right, and hopefully things will improve.

Mind you, I also feel, we need a harder look at where we are. Our management model is far from ideal and hopefully, once the head hunters have done thir bit, we will see the new Honcho, the replacement for the Fat Muncunian, coming in with a bloody big broom, which doesn't require eight new shafts and 14 new heads, before we see a difference.

Mind you, Sports Psychologists don't always produce results. My favourite story of a failure of a Sports Psychologist is told by Gordon Smith Of “Smith must score” fame, from his days with Brighton.

As Gordon tells it, the team was struggling, so, in training, their Sports Psychologist came up with this ploy. They were going to play a practice match, without a ball, and to imagine that every pass went to its intended target.

So, Gordon kicked off and passed the imaginary ball to former Arsenal star Charlie George, who immediately swept the imaginary ball out to the left wing, where Welsh winger Mickey Thomas scampered some 30 yards then slid along the touchline, before getting up and yelling at George: “for fuck sake Charlie, play the ball to feet”. That was the end of imaginary games and the Sports Psychologist.

I CAUGHT-UP with a couple of the Heid Bummers of one of our FOSROC Super Rugby franchises on Saturday. They are not the happiest of bunnies, at the way their experiment is being wound-up, as they say: “Just when we are starting to get somewhere”.

They don't have a high opinion of the SRU decision-makers and feel they have been sold down the river big style. One of them made the point about how many players have come through from Super Rugby to professional contracts with the two full-time sides, and how much the Future XV's results came along over the course of a tough season.

A top football team, such as Arsenal, with a long-established Academy, reckons to be doing well if they get one player per 16-year-old entry squad through to the first team. By that standard, from a club that has been grooming their future talent for some 70-years at least, the SRU getting 14 players into two teams, from the six franchises, in less than five years, is doing well.

They also wanted me to ask a three-part question, so here goes:

• What was the point of investing in Old Glory and Nice?

• How much did this cost the SRU?

• Couldn't that money have been better spent on development in Scotland?

Interesting – very interesting.

SQUAD ROTATION is still something of a new concept in British sport.. The British way is, we decide on our optimum team and, barring injury, that's the team. For instance, I do not believe I could pick-out more than two or three of the current Rangers squad if shown pictures, but, on Facebook this week, I could immediately name every player in the 1964 extended first team squad – because the team hardly varied game from game: Ritchie, Shearer, Provan, Greig, McKinnon, Baxter, Henderson, McMillan or McLean, Millar or Forrest, Brand, Wilson.

Similarly, the Kilmarnock team I followed everywhere in season 1959-60 is still fresh in my mind: Brown, Richmond, Watson, Beattie, Toner, Kennedy, Wentzel or Stewart, McInally, Kerr, Black and Muir still trips happily off the tongue.

It used to be like that in Rugby Union, with teams only changing because of injury or the occasional unfortunate shift assignment. Today, however, squad rotation is very-much a thing. So, after that somewhat convuluted intro, what might we expect from the Scotland squad to tour the Americas this summer.

Ever mindful, this is Scotland we are speaking off, so we might expect the odd unplanned slip on a banana skin. So, there will, of necessity, need to be a core of the multi-capped regulars on the trip. However, we can surely give one or two of the shoo-ins for selection a break, to look at alternatives and “pour encourage les autres”.

Let's look at where we need to freshen things up. Which players are on the downward slope and will need replacing before the next World Cup – so this might be a good tour on which to start looking at their long-term replacements.

Given the importance of the position these days – with WP Nel on a very-short shelf life, we really need to find someone to back-up and challenge Zander Fagerson for the number three shirt. If Murphy Walker can get fit and perhaps get some game time for Warriors between now and the end of the season, the job should be his, otherwise, perhaps the injured Will Hurd will be the man to be offered first dibs. Either way, after a long run of fames – from the 2021-22 season, via the Lions Tour, to the 2022-23 season, on to the World Cup, then the 2024 Six Nations, and an awful lot of minutes at the coal face, we would, I feel, be doing Zander a favour by giving him a summer off.

I would also like to think one of the young Warriors' hookers might be given a place. In the second row, Scott Cummings deserves to be accorded “Senior Professional” status – and maybe the Captaincy in one game. We've got a few younger, lesser-capped locks: Alex Craig, Glen Young, Cameron Henderson, Marshall Sykes and Jamie Hodgson, all jostling for a place, before we mention “The Future” - Warriors' Alex Samuel and Max Williamson.

In the back row, take Rory Darge and Matt Fagerson for their experience, alongside the likes of Ben Muncaster, Ally Miller, Tom Dodd and, if for nothing more than the experience, young Freddy Douglas. Magnus Bradbury, an unused member of the wider squad for the Six Nations, is another who is surely worth a look at on the other side of the pond.

I would give Ben White the summer off, and send George Horne, Jamie Dobie and Ben Afshar as the nines. Now comes the BIG question:

Do we take Finn, or give him the summer off?

A healthy Finn is so-integral to our hopes, there is a case for him getting a chance to cement his place as Captain; but there is an alternative case, for giving him a break – he's had the same, if not a greater work-load than Zander Fagerson, and we might benefit from seeing how we go with Ben Healy, Adam Hastings or Ross Thompson pulling the strings.

The tour offers a huge opportunity for our fringe threequarters: the likes of Stafford McDowall, Rory Hutchison, Kyle Rowe, Harry Paterson. Sione Tuipulotu and Huw Jones have nothing left to prove and could well benefit from time off, while the likes of Mark Bennett offers a touch of experience to help bring-on the younger players.

There is always a risk in taking an under-strength squad on tour, but, at this stage of the World Cup round, we cannot be too conservative and have, I feel to take some selection risks. Let's see if the SRU is brave enough.