WHEN REFLECTING on Scotland and Scottishness, we scribblers must obey one or two rules of thumb. We begin, with our default position since the 18th century with: “Wad but one power the giftie gey us – tae see oorselves as ithers see us.”
Having paid due homage to Ayrshire's Ploughman Poet, we throw in that traditonal Scottish Toast: “Here's tae us, wha's like us – damned few and their awe deid.”
We might add into the mix a wee dollop of “Scotland – the greatest small nation on the planet” or: “The Scots – the finest people God ever created”, when it comes to blawin' oor ain bagpipes, to quote one of the more vociferous of our many clans: “Wearrapeepel”.
Of course, in this third millennium, nearly a quarter of the way into the 21st century, our pleasure at being Scottish is subject to post-modernist theory, so we must dilute all these celebrations of being a member of what Sir Alex Ferguson calls “The Master Race” with a dollup of the Gospel according to Mark Renton:
“It's SHITE being Scottish! We're the lowest of the low. The scum of the fucking Earth! The most wretched miserable servile pathetic trash that was ever shat on civilization. Some people hate the English. I don't. They're just wankers. We, on the other hand, are colonized by wankers. Can't even find a decent culture to get colonized by. We're ruled by effete arseholes. It's a shite state of affairs to be in, Tommy, and all the fresh air in the world won't make any fucking difference!”
Playing Renton was just one of many parts Ewan McGregor has filled during his distinguished career. We don't yet know what other parts are awaiting him down the road, but, when he eventually passes-on, you can bet, that wee cameo from Trainspotting will feature in the tribute – his delivery of Irvine Welsh's words spoke for Scotland.
So, who's speaking for Scotland as we review the shambolic wreckage of what was definitely not “A Carlsberg Weekend”:
Torment in Treviso (made worse by the Claire Thomas commentary)
Red Faces in Rome
Then the Paddies had to go and lose to Them!!!
So, what can we do to bring the sparkle back to being Scottish?
One of the problems with being Scottish is, we are a passioonate race, we lack the level-headedness of a Kipling; a Scot could never have written If.
We Scots definitely struggle with: “Meeting those twin imposters triumph and disaster and treating them both the same.” No nation goes quite as daft when we win, while the late, great David Francey for one, made “Disaster for Scotland” a catch-phrase.
My memory of Scottish Rugby disasters goes back to Scotland 0 South Africa 44 in 1952. Other mental scars I carry from my more than 60 year fascination with Scottish sporting endeavour include:
Scotland 0 Uruguay 7 (World Cup 1954)
Tom Elliott's disallowed try (Twickenham 1955)
Scotland 2 Paraguay 3 (World Cup 1958)
9-3
Hancock's try at Twickenham
The Iran game
The hand of Andrew
Big Gav's penalty miss
So, with these few lowlights from the past in mind, I am not going to get too-upset about losing to an inspired Italian team on Saturday. I've been in worse places with Scotland. Shite Happens, and if you're Scottish, you move through life wondering when and from where the next barrow-load is going to land on you.
George Macdonald-Fraser, in his wonderful tome: 'The General Danced at Dawn' came up with a line which rather sums up being Scottish, when he wrote: “The Jocks would follow their 'Ruperts' (Anglo-Scottish officers) anywhere, generally out of a morbid fascination as to what particular type of trouble they would lead them into.”
That's a metaphor for being Scottish. Sooner, rather than later, Life is going to kick us in the goolies, so we ought to be used to it. We certainly got that on Saturday.
I am not going to jump on the “Toony Must Go” bandwagon. If Not Toony – Who? Sure, we might bring in someone else, say Franco Smith, currently riding high with Glasgow Warriors, or some other Saffer, New Zealander or Aussie.
Yes, whoever we appointed might give us “A new boss bounce” but, he would still have to select his team from the somewhat shallow gene pool wherein Toony currently swims. He would still have to operate within the same broken (or at least cracked) system we have now. A change of Coach, under the surrent management model, does not even promise, far-less guarantee better days ahead.
Let's look at our record against the major Rugby-playing nations:
v England: p 142 – w 47 – d 19 – l 76 – wins percentage 33.1%
v Wales: p 130 – w 52 – d 3 – l 75 – wins percentage 40%
v Ireland: p 141 – w 66 – d 5 – l 70 – wins percentage 47%
v France: p 103 – w 40 – d 3 – l 60 – wins percentage 39%
v Italy: p 37 – w 28 – d 0 – l 9 – wins percentage 76%
v New Zealand: p 32 – w 0 – d 2 – l 30 – wins percentage 0%
v South Africa: p 29 – w 5 – d 0 – l 24 – wins percentage 17%
v Australia: p 34 – w 12 – d 0 – l 22 – wins percentage 35%
v Argentina: p 22 – w 11 – d 0 – w 11 – wins percentage 50%
So, against the better nations, we are only in the plus column for wins v Italy. We are breaking even against Argentina, otherwise, we are in the red. We have to accept that the Italians are catching-up and cutting into our majority of wins as they do so. Yes, it was disappointing to lose to them on Saturday, but, given the way they have played this season, the Italians' luck had to change at some point, to our distress.
Overall therefore, against the top Rugby Nations our record reads:
p 670 – w 261 – d 32 – l 377 – wins percentage 39%
Since the game went Open in 1995, our record against the top Rugby Nations, our record reads:
p 242 – w 81 – d 2 – l 159 – wins percentage 33%
Gregor Townsend's record against the top Nations since 2017 reads:
p 62 – w 30 – d 1 – l 31 – wins percentage 48%
In the Open Era from 1995 until Townsend was appointed, our record read:
p 180 – w 51 – d 1 – l 128 – wins percentage 28%
Our overall record from 1871 to 1995 – the Amateur Era read:
p 428 – w 180 – d 30 – l 218 – wins percentage 42%
There's another auld Scottish saying we should perhaps quote at this stage: “Facts are chiels that wanna ding”. So the facts tell us:
Since the game went Open, our wins percentage has gone down by 9% - but prior to Townsend's appointment, that percentage had gone down by 14%. Under Townsend our wins percentage has risen to now sit 6% above where we were in the Amateur Era.
Time for a Reality Check – we are only just hanging-on at the game's top table. We are one of the smaller nations in terms of overall, far-less rugby-playing population. OK New Zealand, Ireland and Wales are smaller nations, but, they have a greater rugby-playing constituency than us. So, at the moment, we are punching above our weight.
We must accept, we will trip-up occasionally, or be over-matched, but, I would suggest we perhaps look at “The Avis Option”.
Some years ago, Avis, the American car and van-hire company got a new CEO, who shocked everyone when he declared, Avis could never be as big as market-leader Hertz, but, he promised, under his management, they would work harder and certainly try harder. That might be a good place for whoever comes in to replace TCD to start.
Perhaps Toony is a victim of his own success. We are now becoming almost English or Irish, but not yet quite Welsh, in having unreasonable expectations of our team. His wins percentage is still the best by any Scottish coach; his playing philosophy is exciting and when it works, boy are we a team worth watching. But, his playing philosophy is high-risk, high reward and just occasionally, the wheels come off, as they did in the second half in Rome.
In the first half, we were off-loading, changing the point of attack and causing the Italians problems. We never got back to that level after the break. We need to ask why not? And how can we solve this problem.
We lost because of individual errors and a loss of concentration. We also lost because, we perhaps don't have the depth of squad we now need – the longer the game went on and the replacements came on, the more Italy took control.
A fall-off between our starting XV and our finishing one has long been a Scottish problem. No coach can properly solve this in the time he has with his squad during international windows. That is down to the overall philosophy of the Union, how committed they are to giving the International Coach and his squad the best-possible chance of succeeding. In this respect we can and must do better.
We had guys on the field on Saturday who would not get close to some of the other Six Nations squads. Toony can only work with the players he is given, and we need, at club level, to start producing players better-prepared for the international game.
This means working smarter at Glasgow and Edinburgh. It means getting the third team we need up and running, so we can better-integrate our professional and international squads. It means getting the A team re-started and playing regularly.
It also means, the clubs working harder, to bring through more players, more skilled, able to do the basics under pressure, so the professional club and international coaches have better raw materials to polish for the big show.
Losing to Italy was a bump in the road, but, it is up to more than Toony to sort out the damage that bump caused, and to get us ready to avoid the next bump or pot hole, which is surely waiting for us down the road.
This morning, it really is shite being Scottish, but, it's not the end of the world. We are the only nation who can win a Triple Crown this season, would it not be typically Scottish to do that, against the odds, in Dublin?
FINALLY – This morning, I checked the BTL (Below the line) comments section of the relevant story on The Offside Line. That's the go-to place to take the pulse of the game in Scotland.
There were 89 posts on Toony's position; one contributor thought so-much of his contribution, he posted it thrice, so 87 different opinions:
36 contributors felt Townsend Must Go
5 felt Townsend Must Stay
46 were neutral on the Coach's position
These 46 neutrals, however, were scathing on some of the other coaches, the players' mental faculties and – quite a lot of them, on the general state of the SRU and its management of the game in Scotland.
So, to sum up, a sizeable minority want the Coach sacked, while just over half want change to how we run the game up here. Aye, that's a typically-Scottish answer to the problems facing our international side.
The Seymour Skinner Verdict on the Scots still applies.
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