You can take your hands away from your eyes now, it’s mercifully over.
This 2014 Six Nations season for Scotland is probably unique in that the post-mortem had been done long before it ended, the entrails pored over in full after the second game, the Calcutta Cup “nilling”. But Saturday’s final humiliation in Cardiff did add extra entrails, so to speak, and clarified further questions for us to ponder.
SCOTT JOHNSON MAY NOW BE DAMAGED GOODS
Johnno may be a good director of rugby yet, and we’ll have two years to find out, despite the general hostility of much of the Scottish rugby public to him as a result of his failings at head coach this last 14 months.
It’s been a curious association; he came as attack coach, then took on the director of rugby post, which largely went neglected (the win in Rome was the ONLY one by a Scottish representative team this spring international season) as he operated as interim head coach of the national side while they waited for Vern Cotter.
Still, it was Johnson who had a main part in Cotter’s recruitment that turned out had to be postponed a year, it was Johnson who appointed Jonathan Humphreys as forwards coach and the pack were a washout of dubious selection and tactics for most of the last year, it was Johnson who made the abysmal miscalculation that the team could survive one short in the backs against a rampant Wales last Saturday.
It was also Johnson who took Kelly Brown to the Six Nations launch in London as captain yet effectively fired him just two weeks later.
It hardly inspires faith for the direction of our game in the next two years, does it?
CONTRARY TO WHAT THE COACHES SAY, THERE ARE PLENTY OF AUTOMATIC CHOICES FOR SCOTLAND
Does anyone really think it possible that Stuart Hogg, Richie Gray, Ryan Grant, David Denton,
Sean Maitland, Matt Scott and Alex Dunbar are not automatic picks for Scotland?
Gray proved this to be as spurious as it sounds for a country of our meagre resources when belatedly recalled for the last three games of the championship.
Richie may not be at the very top of his game right now, probably due to a lack of stability at club level, but he’s certainly as good as we have. The Irish and English were mystified and delighted he was omitted from the first two games.
The strategy of blooding 16 players by Johnno over a year in order to “build the base” doesn’t help if most of those players aren’t of international standard in the first place.
And for all that we optimistically talk of some of our young players as having limitless potential, are they really the equals of Peter O’Mahony, Luther Burrell, Mike Brown, George North or Gael Fickou, already proven and established stars with the other nations?
WE STILL DON’T HAVE A 10
Duncan Weir is still only 22 and not the finished article by any means. One hoped that the drop goal in Rome might have been some sort of Eureka moment for him, and had he put it through the hands instead of attempting a miss-pass in maybe the key move of the entire championship for Scotland, six minutes into the second half against France, it could have all been different.
Instead he still doesn’t appear to be the definitive answer at Scotland’s perennial problem position, and he benefits at the moment from there being no other real answer.
Ruaridh Jackson had a long shot at the position and never really convinced, while Tom Heathcote was back-up at Bath last season and they brought someone else in ahead of him for this one, which speaks volumes.
The remarkable and ridiculous idea that Finn Russell or Greig Tonks might be alternatives on the back of mere minutes at 10 for their pro teams shows how desperate we’ve become.
The only short-term solution is to give Weir as many games as possible with Glasgow and
Gregor Townsend has to be leaned on to ensure this and hope he matures.
GATLAND AND THE LIONS SELECTORS WERE RIGHT
There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth in Scotland at the numbers selected for the tour to Australia last year, and more during the tour itself, not least from this writer.
In the end, Richie Gray was the only Scot to get on the field in the test series against the Wallabies, and that for 15 minutes of superfluous action in the final rout in Sydney.
One hoped that the Scots who were omitted might respond this season with renewed vigour in an attempt to prove the selectors wrong. Instead, there seemed to be very little indignant reaction to the selection, and an almost passive desire not to dwell on it.
In the end, none of the Scots some of us thought were marginal Lions omissions did much to change minds. Even those picked had pretty miserable campaigns: Gray somehow omitted until Rome, Sean Maitland injured in Dublin and Stuart Hogg ignominiously dismissed in the final match after a frustrating four and quarter games.
Far from sticking it to Lions head coach Warren Gatland and his coaching team, sadly the Scots merely confirmed he was right to ignore them.
VERN COTTER HAS HIS WORK CUT OUT
My standard reply to questions on how much influence incoming head coach Cotter has
had from afar on the Scottish campaign of this 2013-14 season is “not much, I hope”.
If he has had a say on selection and tactics for the last six months, we’re in plenty trouble. However, one suspects that the uneasy peace between him and Clermont Auvergne after their little misunderstanding last year has meant his involvement has been next to nil.
When he does get here, the New Zealander has 15 months to turn Scotland around starting with the worldwide tour to the Americas and South Africa this summer, which will probably be split into two, the first two matches against the USA and Canada being experimental and the second two against Argentina and the Boks more of a first choice side.
One hopes Big Vern enjoys a challenge. Here’s the team, everyone being fit, he should start against the Pumas: Stuart Hogg; Sean Maitland, Alex Dunbar, Matt Scott, Sean Lamont; Duncan Weir, Chris Cusiter; Ryan Grant, Scott Lawson, Euan Murray; Jim Hamilton, Richie Gray; Johnnie Beattie, Kelly Brown (capt), David Denton.