Winning back respect
ONE OF THE LEAST
surprising aspects of the recently concluded Lions series was the fact that not one Scot won a test cap in New Zealand.
Nor was a single Scot deemed worthy of being on the bench; in truth none even came close to being considered.
That lack of a Caledonian complement was so expected that it was barely worthy of note; Tommy Seymour may have been the Lions’ top try-scorer and Stuart Hogg may have gone to New Zealand as the heir apparent for the No 15 test jersey, but even before the tour party left Blighty you would have got long odds on a Scot starting one of the matches that mattered.
Even in New Zealand – a country which owes its character to early waves of hardy Scots immigrants – the absence of the men in blue barely merited a mention.
Despite the fact that two out of the past six Lions captains have been Scots, despite the fact that Scotland beat both Ireland and Wales in this year’s Six Nations, both Warren Gatland and players from England in particular made little attempt to hide their belief that Scotland’s best players are, at best, make-weights.
That casual disregard is, says former Scotland prop Ryan Grant, who was called up to the 2013 Lions after Gethin Jenkins and Cian Healy were injured, now simply a fact of life for Scottish players.
“I’d be lying if I said that other unions didn’t think Scottish teams weren’t that good,” said Grant. “There were four Scots on the last Lions tour, three on this tour, so even though boys are putting up results against Ireland and Wales, they’re not getting the recognition, and that can only be because they’re perceived to be not as good.”
Yet even Glasgow winning the Pro12, Scotland coming within seconds of a World Cup semifinal, achieving their best ever Six Nations position or making the top four of World Rugby’s rankings has not changed the negative perception of Scottish rugby that has gradually built up over the past 17 years.’
Grant is right, but there are good reasons for that. The Six Nations era started with defeat to Italy, a wooden spoon and then a horror-show tour of New Zealand that ended with a 69-20 humiliation at Eden Park in June 2000 [ leading to the decision that Scotland would no longer tour New Zealand].
Since then Scotland were resolutely mediocre until Vern Cotter managed to inject a defensive solidity and esprit de corps, which meant that a national side based around the resolutely competitive Glasgow Warriors side became more than the sum of its parts.
Yet even Glasgow winning the Pro12, Scotland coming within seconds of a World Cup semifinal, achieving their best ever Six Nations position or making the top four of World Rugby’s rankings has not changed the negative perception of Scottish rugby that has gradually built up over the past 17 years.
Rather than focus on the wins, the default setting of European rugby folk towards Scotland means they have been defined by their losses, and in particular their car-crash 60-21 defeat at Twickenham this spring.
The Lions have been a useful barometer of the perception of Scottish rugby. In 1997, two years before Scotland won the final Five Nations Championship, four Scots – Rob Wainwright, Allan Tait, Gregor Townsend and Tom Smith – started Lions tests against South Africa.
Since 1997, however, Smith, who also played all three tests in Australia 16 years ago, has been the only Scot to start a test for the Lions, meaning that by the time the Lions tour South Africa in 2021 it will be 20 years since a Lions starting XV included a Scot.
“The [Scotland] players are obviously not happy about the perception but I think they’re going about it in the right way by letting the results do the talking,” said Grant. “That’s quite an old perception of things but the respect for Scottish rugby is growing and deservedly so as the results speak for themselves.
“Glasgow have done a great job of competing and Scotland recently have put up some great results, so I think perceptions are changing.”
Although the summer tours by the Home Unions took a distant second billing to the main event of the summer, Scotland’s results in Gregor Townsend’s first three games in charge were a vital staging post in the ongoing campaign to change those perceptions.
Despite missing several key players – as well as their three Lions, Scotland were without second row Richie Gray, props Alasdair Dickinson and Rory Sutherland, centres Huw Jones and Mark Bennett, and wing Sean Maitland – Scotland deservedly beat the Wallabies 24-19 in Sydney a week after dispatching Italy 34-13.
More to the point, Scotland did so by playing in a style that was fearless, innovative and expansive. No one would pretend that this is a vintage crop of Aussies, yet the way Townsend maintained the defensive solidity established under Cotter while grafting on a relentless tempo and positivity in attack bodes well for the future.
Scotland may have beaten Australia the last time they toured Down Under, but in 2012 they faced a mixture of first and second-string Wallabies in a match which was played midweek in Newcastle in a debilitating downpour and which saw Scotland get out of their own half just once in the second half.
In Sydney, Australia had no such excuses; this was essentially Scotland’s first win on Aussie soil.
Former Lions first five-eighth Townsend not only brought immediate and sustained success to Glasgow following his appointment as head coach in 2012, but he did so while blooding young players, so it came as no surprise when squad rotation meant that those two wins were followed by a 27-22 loss to Fiji in Suva.
Yet the evidence is there that Scotland can finally give opponents cause to review their preconceptions, and with a pair of proven winners now coaching the two Scottish professional sides – Super Rugby winner Dave Rennie at Glasgow [aided by Jason O’Halloran], and European Cup and Premiership winner Richard Cockerill at perennial underperformers Edinburgh – there is cautious optimism that Scotland may once again become consistently competitive.
For Grant, the proof that Scotland’s results have been translated into genuine respect will only come when the numbers of Scots in a Lions squad can’t be counted on one hand, and when one of Jock Tamson’s bairns once again starts a test match for the Lions.
Grant believes that the tour to South Africa could be the point at which Scotland rejoins the top table.
“I think in the next tour possibly we’ll see a Scottish coach in there, and we’ll definitely see more Scottish players involved,” says Grant. “I think the future’s bright for Scottish rugby and that can only serve the Lions well to have more Scottish players in there and take it back to that kind of evenness, if you like, of a 1997 tour as opposed to a 2017 tour.”