Andy Robinson has dismissed speculation he is poised to quit as Scotland's head coach following their earliest ever World Cup exit.
With the coup de grace applied yesterday by his native England, the former Edinburgh coach was visibly upset by his team’s failure and some of his post-match comments were misinterpreted but he took the first opportunity to set the record straight on his commitment to the cause.
“I’ve got huge desire that is fuelled by the players and the potential I see for Scottish rugby,” he said. “Obviously when you end the tournament as we have done and the disappointment of not qualifying from the group there’s lots of emotion. The big thing for me is being honest and up front about the challenges that are there. There is huge disappointment as a group about not having achieved what we believed we could have.”
While he will meet senior SRU personnel to discuss his future that is merely a routine post-campaign review and Robinson, who signed a four-year deal earlier this year, is doing so with the intention of outlining his plans to help the national team improve.
“People will interpret different aspects,” he said. “I’ll meet with the chairman [Sir Moir Lockhead], CEO Mark Dodson, Mighty Mouse [president Ian McLauchlan] and Graham Lowe [performance director], but I’m going in there with a clear mind that I want to be the Scotland coach and with a clear mindset of how we’re going to move forward.”
He plans to be very clear with the players, too, about what he believes is required to see them reach a higher level of consistency.
“I want them to understand that if I remain as head coach then, when we come together next we come together ready to win games that we’re losing, as opposed to being the unlucky losers that [Scots] have felt for many years,” said Robinson. “It’s not a nice feeling . . . it’s a horrendous feeling to have. We have to do something about it because we can’t carry on as we are.”
He also addressed two particular criticisms. The first is of his performance as a selector, having made sweeping changes throughout the campaign since the first warm-up match, and twice picking a player as captain for one match, then leaving him out of the 22 for the next.
“I believe we got it right in terms of selection for games,” he said. “We got ourselves into a winning position for games through the teams we picked to put pressure on the opposition and secondly for us to be able to play. I’ve been involved here for two years and I’ve been really delighted with the selection process. When we lose a game people will complain about thechopping and changing but it’s about getting the best out of every player.”
The other issue concerns the continued employment of an inexperienced attack coach in Gregor Townsend, whose first full-time coaching job this was when he was appointed by Frank Hadden nearly three years ago, since when there has been no discernible improvement in the team’s capacity to score tries.
The head coach agreed that it is an area where improvement is required, albeit he did not believe too much credence should be placed in statistics that suggest that Scotland boasts the most impotent attack among the sport’s leading nations.
“I don’t think you should always go with stats, but obviously we’re working to improve our attack, as we’re working to improve our defence,” he said. “That’s where we need to be. There’s a lot for us to work on and that’s what we plan to do, but there’s not going to be knee-jerk reactions here.
“I’m not going to pick on one person. This is a collective. I’m really enjoying working with Gregor and the way that he’s coaching,” Robinson added. “He’s got a great eye for the game and he’s an outstanding coach.”
However, he admitted that there will be a full review of all aspects of how things are . as part of that review process done, during which he will doubtless be able to engage in such matters in a way that it would be quite inappropriate to do in a public forum at this stage.
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