It was a little bit odd while driving through England the other night, to pick up Radio Scotland and hear some of our football pundits offering their considered views on the whys and the wherefores of Andy Murray’s tennis success.

A particularly amusing observation was Chick Young’s dig at BBC colleague Kheredine Idasanne and others lucky enough to have professionally followed Scotland’s greatest sportsman down the years about the bleakness of their post-Murray future, given the standard of sport he has routinely been forced to cover these past 20 years in particular.

He was clearly just having a bit of fun, but another engaged in the conversation was deadly earnest when praising the new world number one’s attitude and in particular the passion he shows.

Admittedly the way Barry Ferguson’s international career ended invites rather unflattering comparison, any indiscretions Murray has been guilty of down the years paling into insignificance in relative terms, but it is to the former Scotland captain turned football manager’s credit that he can at least recognise the right attributes when he sees them.

As reflected in comments made on the same day by Gareth Southgate, England’s interim manager, when talking of the need for his players to control their emotions going into this weekend’s vital World Cup qualifier, passion has gone out of fashion in some sporting circles in recent times.

Yet it was once seen as a vital part of the mix, nowhere more so than when the oldest international sporting rivalry of all was rekindled.

There was a wee taste of the benefit of that in Coventry last Saturday evening. An England team, coached by Wayne Bennett, an Australian who admitted beforehand to struggling to understand the how much the encounter means, was up against a Scotland one, coached by Steve McCormack, a northern Englishman who had a full grasp of what the occasion was all about.

A Scotland team that had absolutely no chance of winning duly ripped into their opponents for a remarkable opening half hour, playing with a vigour England’s big men simply could not match. As it had to, Scotland’s emotional energy eventually ran out and they were inevitably overwhelmed by their imposing opponents, but rugby is a very different type of sport from football.

There is a great debate to be had regarding whether sport should be designed to make it likelier that the better team on the day is rewarded or should aim for more in the way of entertainment through the prospect of surprises, but a reversion to old style passion could just be the ingredient the visitors need to upset the odds at Wembley.

There are, of course, dangers involved in whipping things up too much, but if everyone controls their emotions as the England manager wants, there can surely only be one winner.

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And Another Thing…

Will wee Gordon out-last Stern Vern? This long-time Strachan fan, dating back to his day in dark blue in the seventies representing Dundee rather than Scotland, can but hope so, however as Scotland's manager waits to discover his fate at least there is no such uncertainty for his rugby counterpart as Vern Cotter begins what he knows is his last season in charge of the Scotland team.

After the long hello when we spent a ridiculous year watching Scotland suffer defeat after defeat, culminating in a thrashing at the hands of Wales, all accompanied by the buffoonery of the man who would be Scotland’s director of rugby, the long goodbye is upon us.

In between times the ‘stern Vern’ pose has been a bit of a cringey throwback to days when New Zealanders eulogised about unsmiling giants, but if his reign has fallen short of living up to what others were promising on his behalf, his record from 28 matches in charge to date is far and away the best of that of the antipodean coaches Scotland have recruited with the combined expertise of Aussies Matt Williams and that man Scott Johnson having accrued eight wins in 33 international matches.

A 50/50 strike rate may be nothing to get overly excited about, not least when compared with fellow Kiwi and former Clermont Auvergne assistant coach Joe Schmidt over the same period with Ireland, during which they have claimed more than twice as many wins as defeats, culminating in last weekend’s historic win over the All Blacks.

However in Scottish terms it is the best in the professional era with the success rates of the homegrown brigade Richie Dixon, Jim Telfer, Ian McGeechan, Frank Hadden, as well as Englishman Andy Robinson all hovering around the 40 per cent mark and it would be deeply ironic if he finished with a winning season and tilted the overall balance to become Scotland’s first winning coach of the professional era.

Either way it feels as if the SRU has put itself in yet another no-win situation since a bad season will be just that yet again, whereas a good one will leave us wondering exactly why Cotter was got rid of.