Balance is right with double act aiming to deliver
SCOTLAND have had many double acts in charge of the national rugby team, but the new faces appear to be from a different mould entirely. Ian McGeechan and Jim Telfer were considered ‘one-offs’, and two Grand Slams, Triple Crowns and championship wins ensured they set a unique bar for all who have followed.
Colin Telfer, Derrick Grant and Dougie Morgan all had different styles before the move to pro rugby where Richie Dixon and David Johnston kicked it off. McGeechan and Telfer regrouped for a bit and then Matt Williams and Willie Anderson offered up an intriguing duo and ultimate disaster that pre-empted the shift back to an all-Scottish trio of Frank Hadden, Alan Tait and George Graham.
Andy Robinson, Scott Johnson and Vern Cotter could not have been more different, and their assistants likewise.
Despite that long list of varied characters, Gregor Townsend and Dan McFarland appear to have no predecessors in roots nor style. Townsend is the first Gala man to be head coach of the national team but is a popular choice after a stellar Scotland career and a successful past eight years as a coach with Scotland and Glasgow.
But he turned to someone with no pedigree in the Scottish game for a trusty lieutenant. The first major and controversial call Townsend made off the field as a head coach at Glasgow was to say ‘thanks and goodbye’ to loyal assistant Sean Lineen and former Scotland team-mate Shade Munro.
Townsend had a wealth of forwards coaches it was thought he might turn to. Instead, he opted for someone he had little knowledge of but had heard good things about — Connacht’s forwards coach McFarland.
That set out Townsend’s stall as a coach of his own mind. He had already brought in from Australia defence guru Matt Taylor, a former Borders and Scotland A player, and he, McFarland and Townsend are now charged with building on Cotter’s promising Scots revival.
‘I think it’s a really good balance,’ said McFarland. ‘When I moved to Glasgow it was a good move for me but I’d only have done it if I thought that balance was going to be right. I had a lot of conversations with Gregor, flying backwards and forwards, and spending a lot of time chatting about stuff.
‘We’re of a like mind. We’re both driven, extremely hard-working, we’re both… I wouldn’t say grumpy, but demanding? Gregor is extremely demanding, the standards he expects are extremely high and that’s the kind of environment I want to work in.
‘One of the interesting dynamics is that Gregor’s style of play, which is world renowned I’d say, is fast, built on speed and people immediately think of good backs, fast passing, line-breaks and things like that. But I’m a forwards coach.
‘I love to see big driving mauls and strong scrums.
‘The blend that we have I think is a good one. I like the contact work we do and the style of rugby requires us to be world class at contact. If we’re not, we can’t play our style of play, so that meshes nicely with what Gregor wants, too — even though he was a ten and probably never hit a ruck in his life!’
So who is McFarland? His playing career is a fascinating story. A loosehead prop schooled in North Yorkshire, he endured the great hope and great heartaches of early professionalism when his club Richmond led the new professional age in 1996 only to hit financial ruin and be relegated to the very bottom of England’s leagues as punishment.
Rather than scrap his pro dream, McFarland headed to France and Stade Francais, and incredibly went from an English disaster to a French success story as Stade claimed the Top 14 title win in his first season.
More keen to play every week than celebrate in the shadows, however, McFarland moved to Ireland to join Connacht.
He would become a strong part of the Irish province’s fight for survival, on and off the park, and this time came out the other end as a massive campaign forced the IRFU to hand Connacht a reprieve.
He was asked to coach the Ireland Under-20s and an Emerging Ireland side before Townsend swooped in 2015.
Almost exactly a year older than his boss, at 45, McFarland and Townsend are both voluble but quiet-spoken — Taylor tends to be the shouter — and both have a passionate attention to detail.
They cannot simply import the Glasgow blueprint to Murrayfield. But the plan is similar — a fast, skilful game founded on powerful, dynamic forward play that ensures the team is on the front foot.
A modern take on the Scottish approach, from a unique new Scots-English-Australia perspective?
‘Obviously my background is not Scottish,’ added McFarland, ‘but I’ve moved around places.
‘I have to understand the guys I’m working with, who I’m representing and what it is that makes people like Gregor tick. I know him well. Through making me feel like I and my family belong in the last two years, I understand the kind of Scottishness that is really apparent in the squad.’