ONE coach may be about to lead Scotland to their best performance in the Six Nations Championship since it began in 2000. Another coach could be set to preside over Glasgow Warriors’ worst finish in the PRO12 since the competition was rebranded in 2011.
The first coach, Vern Cotter, is set to leave the country in the summer and return to club rugby in France after the Scottish Rugby Union decided not to renew his contract. The second, Gregor Townsend, is set to leave Scotstoun for Murrayfield, where he will take charge of the national team.
There will be no concerted protest against Townsend when he takes up his new role: he has achieved too much in his previous seasons with Glasgow for that to happen, and his reputation as one of the brightest young coaches in the game will not disappear merely because the Warriors are having, by their standards, a difficult season. Their difficulties in the PRO12 have been caused largely by poor results when their best players have been absent on international duty - something outwith Townsend’s control - and those indifferent outings in the league have been offset by the excellent European performances that have taken them into the Champions Cup quarter-finals for the first time.
But there is already considerable unease about Cotter’s departure, and the better Scotland fare in their remaining two matches under the New Zealander, the more that unease will grow. They won’t have to win both of those matches, either, for the disquiet to grow, because while results are undeniably important, the thing that has been most impressive about Scotland latterly is the style with which they have played. It is perfectly conceivable, for example, that they will lose to England on Saturday and yet play by far the better rugby in the game. That has been the case in quite a few Calcutta Cup matches of the past, notably back in 1999, when they lost 24-21 at Twickenham on their way to becoming the last Five Nations champions.
So it is not as if Cotter’s three-year tenure as national coach is poised on a knife-edge, to be deemed a failure unless he leads the team to the title. Whatever happens this weekend against England and next Saturday against Italy, Scotland have clearly enjoyed real, sustained progress under the New Zealander. Granted, that was from a low point - the Six Nations whitewash of 2015 - but from there through that year’s Rugby World Cup and into the last two Championships, the team has matured in every department of the game.
Of course, Cotter is not the only person who deserves credit for that improvement. The coach himself always praises the players for their honesty, integrity and willingness to learn, while the assistant coach Jason O’Halloran has also had a huge role to play in helping those players find a cutting edge. (O’Halloran, at least, will not be lost to Scotland, as he is to join incoming Warriors coach Dave Rennie at Scotstoun next season).
Given the relative youth and inexperience of those players - most are well short of the 40-60 caps normally seen as the hallmark of the seasoned international - Scotland’s improvement under Cotter seemed certain to continue for another couple of seasons at least. Up until the 2019 World Cup, which would have been a natural time for change at the top.
Such an improvement may well continue under Townsend, and the fact that he takes over two years out from the World Cup should give him more than enough time to find his feet in his new role. But the former Scotland stand-off will only be 44 when he becomes national coach - relatively young for a role which, like international football management, is tending to be more suited to senior figures.
Although his playing career took him to England, France and South Africa, Townsend has so far only coached in this country. That does not mean he cannot learn from other countries or indeed from other sports - he has a keen appetite for new ideas whatever their origin - but there is still nothing like immersing yourself in a different environment if you want to broaden your experience.
Rather than worrying about losing Townsend now if they chose to offer Cotter a new deal, the SRU could have thought about the more experienced national coach they would get in a few years if they allowed him to leave for France or wherever this summer. Hopefully Townsend still has a couple of decades of coaching in him; national coaches do not hang around for more than a few years; better, then, to get him when he is at his best.
Whatever the precise circumstances that led to the decision to let Cotter go and appoint Townsend in his place, it will always look like one that was made in undue haste. In the coming weeks we may see Scotland lose to both England and Italy, and Glasgow storm back into the play-off positions - stranger things have happened in sport. But even if there is such a reversal of fortunes, the feeling will persist that Cotter’s work with Scotland was unfinished, and that Townsend’s need not have begun so soon.
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