Next Coach?

[Eugene Wrayburn]

That doesn't make sense. Japan beating Ireland doesn't make Townsend less suitable for the Scotland job post the world cup.

Equally if we have a nightmare over our next three games but squeek through because Samoa beat Japan and Russia beat Samoa, that doesn't make him more suitable.

While I agree with your logic, it eaves me wondering.... Is there anything that could make Townsend less suitable for the Scotland job post the World Cup?

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Yes, performances. If we lose to Samoa and Japan it's make his position pretty untenable too

You've vaulted over the Samoa hurdle pretty easily but as I sat down to watch the game I did think that actually if you did lose both those games his position would be untenable.

[whatisthejava]

Its a tricky one with Japan beating Ireland now

I kinda think as long as we are in it against Japan and dont collapse he will survive

There will be some interesting calls in the Japan game as everyone will want them to win and complete the miracle

[Scottish Caley Fan]

I think its time to bump this thread back up because I believe nearly every fan agrees that Gregor will have coached his last Scotland game this morning.

[Cameo]

I think its time to bump this thread back up because I believe nearly every fan agrees that Gregor will have coached his last Scotland game this morning.

No, I don't and the fans I know are split

I think coaching internationally is very different from coaching at club level so unless you have an internationally experienced, good and available candidate, I'd prefer that we stay with Townsend.

As said above, I think he has made some mistakes but he has done plenty of good things too. If their had been no improvement after the Ireland game, I would have been won round but Samoa and Russia were good performances and I don't think there is much shame in losing to that Japan team.

HW has, fairly, pointed to defensive mistakes for most of their tries against Japan (and I would replace Taylor) but their is an extent to which all tries are defensive mistakes and the ones last night were on large part because Japan were playing so quickly and accurately. Even the best defenders make bad reads and miss tackles if they are desperately scrambling into position again and again

[Soapy]

I think its time to bump this thread back up because I believe nearly every fan agrees that Gregor will have coached his last Scotland game this morning.

No, I don't and the fans I know are split

I think coaching internationally is very different from coaching at club level so unless you have an internationally experienced, good and available candidate, I'd prefer that we stay with Townsend.

As said above, I think he has made some mistakes but he has done plenty of good things too. If their had been no improvement after the Ireland game, I would have been won round but Samoa and Russia were good performances and I don't think there is much shame in losing to that Japan team.

HW has, fairly, pointed to defensive mistakes for most of their tries against Japan (and I would replace Taylor) but their is an extent to which all tries are defensive mistakes and the ones last night were on large part because Japan were playing so quickly and accurately. Even the best defenders make bad reads and miss tackles if they are desperately scrambling into position again and again

I just can’t see any evidence that Townsend has the skill to deliver any progress from here. Every other top 10 team defends better than us. Every other top 10 team (well except France) play with much greater consistency and focus. We consistently start poorly or drop out of games. All tier 1 teams expect to score 4 tries against us. Our error count is through the roof and way higher than the teams we think we should be measuring ourselves against. And it doesn’t change. Lessons aren’t learned and we are mentally soft.

A good coach assesses the available resources, works out how to get the most out of them, raises the level of the poor performances and develops a culture and environment that drives standards to consistently better performances. For years we could pride ourselves on being cohesive, focused and better than the sum of our parts - like Wales are today. We aren’t going to get close to that with Townsend.

If one good thing can come from WC failure it will be getting rid of Townsend and his coterie. He doesn’t deserve another tilt at the 6N. Dodson needs to grow a pair, admit his mistake with Cotter and send Gregor a well deserved P45.

[Big D]

My issue with Townsend is he is routinely outcoached. We have never won a significant competitive away game against anyone other than Italy under him*. The one away game we should have won was an absolute freak and even then it's a black mark that we didn't win that one too.

He went conservative in his selections. Our two best back rowers were either not in the original squad or widely said to be the last one in.

The selections at 13 have been shown to be poor as well.

He is responsible for Taylor staying and our defense is the worst in the top 10 in the world.

Samoa and Russia with all due respect are crap. As are we. We looked completely under prepared for what Ireland and Japan were going to do. We were out by half time without firing a shot. A rally in the second half means little when the damage has been done.

*if we give him credit for Australia and Argentina friendlies then he should be equally criticised for Fiji and USA.

[Soapy]

My issue with Townsend is he is routinely outcoached. We have never won a significant competitive away game against anyone other than Italy under him*. The one away game we should have won was an absolute freak and even then it's a black mark that we didn't win that one too.

He went conservative in his selections. Our two best back rowers were either not in the original squad or widely said to be the last one in.

The selections at 13 have been shown to be poor as well.

He is responsible for Taylor staying and our defense is the worst in the top 10 in the world.

Samoa and Russia with all due respect are crap. As are we. We looked completely under prepared for what Ireland and Japan were going to do. We were out by half time without firing a shot. A rally in the second half means little when the damage has been done.

*if we give him credit for Australia and Argentina friendlies then he should be equally criticised for Fiji and USA.

+1. Out coached and easily so.

[whatisthejava]

I can’t quite decide if I want him gone or Taylor moved on. Most of our problems have stemmed from really bad defense. The backs can attack and the forwards do look like they know what they are trying to do when they bother to turn up.

I think tactically he gets it wrong but a lot of it comes from him trusting players who just don’t deliver

Finn and Laidlaw do not work together
Wilson and barclay and to a lesser extend gray don’t don’t the modern player which needs aggressive players.

If toony is to survive he needs to pretty much clear out forwards who don’t dominate the breakdown.
Drop the kick chase game which has never worked for us

Dell, Wilson and barclay are all done, as is seymore and to a lesser extend maitland.

Reid needs to get a pro contract at Ed or weeg.

He also needs to decide who his starting xv is in and stop changing it.

For me feb is 4 months away and the team needs to look big and mean

Reid
Mcinally
Fagerson
Cummings
Gilchrist
Bradbury
Richie/Watson
Thomson
G Horne
Russell
Graham
Johnson
Harries
Kinghorn
Hogg

Taylor also has to go the problems have been visible all year and even in the warm ups we were totally out of position.

[cashead]

There's also an inconsistency in the manner in which the Scots play, which I feel has been especially pronounced this year - the team'd be limp and disinterested and then switch on enough to make it a contest. The loss to Japan is a classic example of it; overwhelmed and out of sorts in the first half, switched on enough to get back into the game in the second. It's just that in that situation, the Scots found themselves having to play catch-up in a do-or-die scenario, the psychological pressure which compounds the defensive pressure already being exerted on them by the Blossoms, and welp, here we are.

I also wasn't surprised to see Scotland lose to Ireland, but I can't say I was expecting to see them so limp and lackadaisical either. Overall, I felt that Scotland just didn't seem to be able to get it together at this tournament, and quite a few of the players that you'd expect better from just looked so leaden-footed, like Hogg last night.

I don't know if you can put that down to Townsend, but I'd add that as an outsider looking in, I can tell you that when Scotland are on, they're spectacular.

[Eugene Wrayburn]

It seems to me that the responsibility is largely that of the players. There just aren't enough of them who are brilliant, not enough who are very good. The results in European competition are a fair indication of that. They might not be helped particularly by the coaching but against brilliant coaches (Jamie Joseph and Schmidt) or superior players (Ireland) or superior organisation (the Japanese have had 200 odd days together the past year) that group of players is going to struggle unless they get everything right, and how often does that happen in sport.

[General Zod]

I think I heard or read somewhere that they have a sports psychology (or similar) consultant they use sometimes for matches but despite results improving when s/he’s involved, they are not full time and didn’t travel to Japan.

If that’s true, it sounds like a massive oversight and a significant advantage which our rivals have over us (for however long they remain as rivals).

[Cameo]

A bit off topic but the Japan 200 days thing is interesting as is the statement of someone high up there that they can develop players better outside Super Rugby. This seems to fit a trend of players who have come back from injury being parachuted straight into important matches and big name players barely being involved in pre season matches for their clubs.

Are coaches/sports scientists so confident in their methods that playing at a high level is no longer the best preparation? I suspect there is a happy medium but what implications does that have? In trying to help second tier nations do we concentrate more on hard cash allowing training camps rather than getting players involved at a higher level? Should we be aiming to make the Pro14 just a straight home and away against your conference before the playoffs, therefore freeing up much more training time?

The danger is that it promotes a narrow view of success with the very elite locked away in training camps and others left in the cold. E.g. the approach could maybe get Georgia to a World Cup quarter final or probably would help Germany qualify for a World Cup but it would be divorcing them from any wider growth in rugby there

[hugh_woatmeigh]

I think I heard or read somewhere that they have a sports psychology (or similar) consultant they use sometimes for matches but despite results improving when s/he’s involved, they are not full time and didn’t travel to Japan.

If that’s true, it sounds like a massive oversight and a significant advantage which our rivals have over us (for however long they remain as rivals).

I'm not privy to the inner workings of the national camp so these are just wild predictions. But I feel like there's an element of not being held fully accountable for mistakes or screw ups. The perfect consistency at which these same old basic mistakes suggests that the fear of the consequences back in camp doesn't exist.

Everyone has had a soft-touch boss before but the good ones will turn the screws on you if your performance slips.


The constantly botched restarts after scoring is a classic example. Someone like Jones or Edwards would never let that happen again after the first couple and that's a fact.

[Mikey Brown]

A bit off topic but the Japan 200 days thing is interesting as is the statement of someone high up there that they can develop players better outside Super Rugby. This seems to fit a trend of players who have come back from injury being parachuted straight into important matches and big name players barely being involved in pre season matches for their clubs.

Are coaches/sports scientists so confident in their methods that playing at a high level is no longer the best preparation? I suspect there is a happy medium but what implications does that have? In trying to help second tier nations do we concentrate more on hard cash allowing training camps rather than getting players involved at a higher level? Should we be aiming to make the Pro14 just a straight home and away against your conference before the playoffs, therefore freeing up much more training time?

The danger is that it promotes a narrow view of success with the very elite locked away in training camps and others left in the cold. E.g. the approach could maybe get Georgia to a World Cup quarter final or probably would help Germany qualify for a World Cup but it would be divorcing them from any wider growth in rugby there

It’s an interesting one. You’d think Argentina have got the best of both worlds there but obviously that didn’t pan out.

[hugh_woatmeigh]

A bit off topic but the Japan 200 days thing is interesting as is the statement of someone high up there that they can develop players better outside Super Rugby. This seems to fit a trend of players who have come back from injury being parachuted straight into important matches and big name players barely being involved in pre season matches for their clubs.

Are coaches/sports scientists so confident in their methods that playing at a high level is no longer the best preparation? I suspect there is a happy medium but what implications does that have? In trying to help second tier nations do we concentrate more on hard cash allowing training camps rather than getting players involved at a higher level? Should we be aiming to make the Pro14 just a straight home and away against your conference before the playoffs, therefore freeing up much more training time?

The danger is that it promotes a narrow view of success with the very elite locked away in training camps and others left in the cold. E.g. the approach could maybe get Georgia to a World Cup quarter final or probably would help Germany qualify for a World Cup but it would be divorcing them from any wider growth in rugby there

It’s an interesting one. You’d think Argentina have got the best of both worlds there but obviously that didn’t pan out.

They were very unlucky against France and it's impossible to say what would have happened against England had one player not had a brainfart.

They competed really well until being a man down just became too much. They're capable of turning top teams over.

[Puja]

A bit off topic but the Japan 200 days thing is interesting as is the statement of someone high up there that they can develop players better outside Super Rugby. This seems to fit a trend of players who have come back from injury being parachuted straight into important matches and big name players barely being involved in pre season matches for their clubs.

Are coaches/sports scientists so confident in their methods that playing at a high level is no longer the best preparation? I suspect there is a happy medium but what implications does that have? In trying to help second tier nations do we concentrate more on hard cash allowing training camps rather than getting players involved at a higher level? Should we be aiming to make the Pro14 just a straight home and away against your conference before the playoffs, therefore freeing up much more training time?

The danger is that it promotes a narrow view of success with the very elite locked away in training camps and others left in the cold. E.g. the approach could maybe get Georgia to a World Cup quarter final or probably would help Germany qualify for a World Cup but it would be divorcing them from any wider growth in rugby there

It’s an interesting one. You’d think Argentina have got the best of both worlds there but obviously that didn’t pan out.

They were very unlucky against France and it's impossible to say what would have happened against England had one player not had a brainfart.

They competed really well until being a man down just became too much. They're capable of turning top teams over.

I have to disagree. Argentina were kept in the France match by the ineffability of France and were never in contention against England, 14 men or 15. You say they're capable of turning top teams over, but they haven't won a game against anyone in the top 10 for over a year and haven't even looked likely to. They're deservedly ranked 11th in the world.

Puja

[switchskier]

I think I heard or read somewhere that they have a sports psychology (or similar) consultant they use sometimes for matches but despite results improving when s/he’s involved, they are not full time and didn’t travel to Japan.

If that’s true, it sounds like a massive oversight and a significant advantage which our rivals have over us (for however long they remain as rivals).

I'm not privy to the inner workings of the national camp so these are just wild predictions. But I feel like there's an element of not being held fully accountable for mistakes or screw ups. The perfect consistency at which these same old basic mistakes suggests that the fear of the consequences back in camp doesn't exist.

Everyone has had a soft-touch boss before but the good ones will turn the screws on you if your performance slips.


The constantly botched restarts after scoring is a classic example. Someone like Jones or Edwards would never let that happen again after the first couple and that's a fact.

You must be a risotto work for. Some people just lose all confidence and become panicky and make more mistakes if they feel that the boss will be all over them. A decent manager knows how to coach both. The mix of personalities in the coaching staff maybe isn't right.

[General Zod]

I suppose also that the ultimate sanction of being dropped in favour of someone else doesn’t really apply to some of our players, such is the drop-off in quality. Or maybe we need to challenge that perception - maybe the quality drop-off isn’t what we think it is.

I dunno. Re-starts are an absolute shambles though.

[Donny osmond]

My tuppence worth: we've been here many times before, it's a combination of factors but underpinning it is the domestic set up. I'd be interested to see how many pro clubs and pro players japan has compared to us. 2 clubs and only a handful of pro players is killing us. Yeah we can still produce the odd moment of individual magic, but we are never going to bring thru enough players who have the combination of attributes to make thier mark at the highest level.

As for the coach, GT is consistently out thought and out coached, I don't think he's going to advance our team in any meaningful way. But he can only pish with the cock he's got. Until we get a substantial reform of domestic pro rugby to either get greater numbers or have some kind of central contract system where the players spend a lot more time with the international coaching team, then we're not going to get any consistency of performance or results.

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[Digby]

You somehow need someone to mesh what Cotter sought to do and be able to bolt on that extra bit of adventure Townsend will allow for. It's not easy, to plan for. I like Townsend is willing to try something different, but his basics and selection too often leave an odd meshing of players running too many Hail Mary plays

Ideally Townsend learns/adapts or gains some outside assistance, his Glasgow team were one of my favourites to watch, and okay that's harder still at test level, but I can't see Scotland winning lots of games without taking a risk somewhere

[Donny osmond]

You somehow need someone to mesh what Cotter sought to do and be able to bolt on that extra bit of adventure Townsend will allow for. It's not easy, to plan for. I like Townsend is willing to try something different, but his basics and selection too often leave an odd meshing of players running too many Hail Mary plays

Ideally Townsend learns/adapts or gains some outside assistance, his Glasgow team were one of my favourites to watch, and okay that's harder still at test level, but I can't see Scotland winning lots of games without taking a risk somewhere

If GT has to own all the disappointments then it’s fair to say that selling out Murrayfield for 15 (or however many) consecutive matches has also happened on his watch and that’s a pretty big tick in the pro column for him. IMO the reason his teams have sold that many tickets is because when he started, and coming from a fun-to-watch team like Glasgow, everyone was just excited to see fast skill full players let off the leash. I think he should get back to that and stop with trying to compete tactically. We have the players to run Hail Mary stuff. We don’t have the players to try and match Eng/Ire/wal etc with more structured rugby.

[Digby]

You somehow need someone to mesh what Cotter sought to do and be able to bolt on that extra bit of adventure Townsend will allow for. It's not easy, to plan for. I like Townsend is willing to try something different, but his basics and selection too often leave an odd meshing of players running too many Hail Mary plays

Ideally Townsend learns/adapts or gains some outside assistance, his Glasgow team were one of my favourites to watch, and okay that's harder still at test level, but I can't see Scotland winning lots of games without taking a risk somewhere

If GT has to own all the disappointments then it’s fair to say that selling out Murrayfield for 15 (or however many) consecutive matches has also happened on his watch and that’s a pretty big tick in the pro column for him. IMO the reason his teams have sold that many tickets is because when he started, and coming from a fun-to-watch team like Glasgow, everyone was just excited to see fast skill full players let off the leash. I think he should get back to that and stop with trying to compete tactically. We have the players to run Hail Mary stuff. We don’t have the players to try and match Eng/Ire/wal etc with more structured rugby.

I'll take the point that your next piece of ball might be the best bit of ball you get for the remainder of the game, but dear god you push playing even when you're not ready and defences are. There's more to be done to speed up the play the ball before trying to play, and that before trying the Hail Mary approach

[Cameo]

I think our approach has to be adventurous but that doesn't mean we don't need to focus on the basics - quick ball and getting over the mainline. At the moment though, it feels like Townsend has listened to those who said you need to be more pragmatic but in the wrong way. This has led to trying to play high risk fast rugby but with a slow safety first scrum half (and dropping X factor centres).

I am still optimistic for the next few years (of some good wins or even years not of suddenly dominating the the 6N as some people seem to think is the minimum)

[af73]

That's the feeling I got over the warm up games. Muddled tactics, contradictory selections.
What we ended up with was a "camel", the car Homer Simpson designed or as Eric Morecambe put it; "all the right notes, just not necessarily in the right order"

We could still have been adventurous without being reckless. But we dispensed with those best equipped players skill-wise to play adventurous rugby in Jones and Hutchinson. Instead we expected solid, if uninspiring alternatives to suddenly upskill themselves to that level but at the same time suddenly bring defensive solidity to an environment ill-designed for that purpose.

Laidlaw's speed and the out matched backrow against Ireland was a compounding problem, moving the issue on to Finn and Hogg to do their magic in isolation.

In short - a lack of harmony between purpose, strategy and material.

The attitude or readiness was missing in Nice. Fixed (apparently) by the usual reaction at home against France which convinced the coaches all was well. Form and fitness was set in stone and no evidence against Georgia was going to change that - Hutchinson, Matt Fagerson.

Is it any wonder the same issue repeated against Ireland, another reaction against Samoa and Russia bit too little to late. You turn up at tournaments fit, ready to play with everyone knowing what to do and practiced in how to do it. Not with players hoping to regain form and fitness or deploying untried combinations.

As often happens in 6 nations we ended up somewhere near where we should have been at the outset but it took a combination of injury (Watson > Bradbury), reactions (panic) and seeing the light (Laidlaw > G. Horne) to shift stubborn coaches and players.

[Digby]

Bar Laidlaw being weird, in that even if you get fast ball he's not going to use it anyway, the three main areas as ever are set piece, attacking the breakdown to secure ball and deliver quick ball, Townsend quite reasonably is better at addressing what happens once the ball is won, or so it seems, and defence.

Okay nobody bar Japan is going to get 200 days to drill a side over and over, and they look very drilled, but there is scope to address patterns of play across just two clubs if you want the test side to be the priority