SCOTLAND could lose all three tests on their summer tour of Australasia – but Andy Robinson's job will still be safe, according to Scott Hastings.
Scotland play Australia on June 5, Fiji on June 16 and Samoa seven days later. While criticising the RBS 6 Nations whitewash, 65-times-capped Hastings believes under-fire Robinson will be given a full 12 months to turn things around.
Speaking at Scotstoun stadium as he promoted next month's HSBC Sevens World Series, Hastings said: "Sport is about confidence and the Scottish boys have lost some of that. Somehow they are going to have to find it again because they have a tough tour coming up.Scotland could be staring down the barrel of three losses. The belief has to come from the senior players to rally round and support Robinson in what he is trying to achieve. If you look at the Six Nations, Scotland showed glimpses of beating England and France, and played very well against Wales. You could see improvement, but when I was playing for Scotland the senior players led you, and I didn't see leadership from the senior players. The performances against Ireland in the second half and against Italy were unacceptable."
Despite the five defeats, which took Scotland's losing streak to seven, Robinson survived a review with SRU chief executive Mark Dodson – and Hastings believes he will survive even if the sequence is extended to 10 in the summer.
"I think the decision has been taken that there is a year for Robinson to turn it around," he said. "I believe you have to take the summer tour, then the autumn internationals, in isolation. The next Six Nations is undoubtedly going to be the yardstick. Without success for Scotland in that, we're talking about another World Cup two years down the line in 2015."
On a brighter note, Hastings has been cheered by Edinburgh reaching the semi-finals of the Heineken Cup, and enthused about the three tries scored by Stuart Hogg against Munster on Saturday night. The second-half hat-trick almost single-handedly won Glasgow a bonus point in their chase for a RaboDirect Pro12 play-off place.
"He's exciting, without a shadow of doubt," said Hastings. "There is a confidence to his play. There's debate as to whether he's going to be a better centre or a full-back. Put him at full-back and he can choose any running lines or options. But Sean Lineen, who is his coach and works with him every day, thinks he's perhaps a better centre."
The 19-year-old Hogg made his Scotland debut in the Six Nations, scoring his first international try. Hastings' introduction to test rugby came when he was two years older, and his debut try was against England in 1986 in an epic 33-6 win.
Hastings believes Scotstoun, with its extended capacity of 15,000, will have a better atmosphere than Murrayfield for the Emirates Airline world sevens event on May 5 and 6.
"I came here last Tuesday and it was an athletics venue," he said. "Now I can see the infrastructure going up and I'm getting excited it can be a 15,000 sell-out both days."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article