«JOHN GREECHAN’S SIX NATIONS VERDICT
Scots brought shame on the jersey. Now they are charged with restoring pride — quickly
THEY shamed the jersey. Brought disgrace upon themselves and the nation they represent. And now they must pay the price.
If Gregor Townsend does not gut his starting XV from top to toe, removing the worst offenders exposed as bottlers and choke merchants in such humiliating fashion, it can only be for one of two reasons.
Either the players he didn’t select to start in Cardiff are still so genuinely unfit/out of form/low on confidence that he has no alternative. Or he’s lost his mind.
The prospect of welcoming France to Murrayfield on Sunday with — just to pick a handful of the most glaring failures — Ali Price, Cornell du Preez, Byron McGuigan and the much-hyped Chris Harris all in the line-up is just too horrific to consider.
Finn Russell deserves a second chance despite a guddled game of aimless misdirection because, well, he’s a proven line breaker and chance creator. But even he can consider himself on notice.
With the noble exception of Stuart Hogg, there is barely a Scotland player who could argue about being drop-kicked into the long grass by selectors for a week, a month or more. Go away and think about what you’ve done.
The aftermath of Saturday’s spanking in Wales brought to mind a famous comment from German footballing legend Franz Beckenbauer.
Following a rare and horrific major tournament failure by
Die Mannschaft, the great man observed that you could put the whole squad in a bag, swing at it with a stick and know, with some certainty, that you’d be hitting someone who deserved it.
Gentlemen, get in the sack. And know that this (verbal) beating is fully deserved.
Because, sweet mercy, what we witnessed — no, what we endured — in the Principality Stadium on Saturday was akin to a crime against humanity.
The most embarrassing Scotland performance of all time? Sadly, there are a few dozen contenders for that title.
But being so roundly routed by the Welsh, a loveable lot with nary an overbearing fibre in their national character, ranks as high — or low — as anything we suffered in the wilderness years.
Yes, being so soundly thumped at Twickenham last year hurt like hell. But repeated damned good thrashings at HQ have rather inured us to the shock value.
Saturday was different. Despite our dismal record there, a thumping like this shouldn’t have happened. It was almost entirely self-inflicted, OTT praise for the Welsh notwithstanding.
And the walkover was made worse by the fact that, according to almost everyone in rugby, these days were supposed to be over.
Townsend and his men had gone into his first Six Nations as head coach with confidence soaring and ambitions laid out for the world to see.
Oh yes, our boys were going to shake up the world. Reinvent the wheel, if need be.
But shipping 34 points, when it could have been 50 or more, suggests the entire ramshackle charabanc is in need of an overhaul. With the emphasis on stripping away malfunctioning parts.
One of the problems, of course, is that rugby is too polite a sport for brutal blood-letting. That’s certainly the only explanation for scrum-half Price lasting almost 50 minutes on Saturday.
What? Giving a guy the hook at half-time simply isn’t the done thing? There are football coaches who would have withdrawn the No9 after half an hour, given the obvious state he was in.
Looking shot, dead-eyed and lost, he could not be expected to drag himself back from the abyss. He needed to be removed for his own sake, regardless of embarrassment factor for player or coach.
McGuigan was all over the shop, Harris seemed terror stricken, the back row went missing and there was a lack of leadership.
Everyone says what a great captain John Barclay is. Well, now is the time for him to prove it.
Because he didn’t do much in the way of rallying his troops or focusing minds in the heat of battle. Nor did his own errors at the breakdown inspire much confidence among team-mates.
If the skipper is faced with a test of his man management and individual skills between now and Sunday, that is nothing compared to the challenge confronting Townsend.
This may well be the biggest week of his coaching career. And he absolutely must get his next step 100-per-cent right.
The onus is on Toonie to prove that he’s not just a width-addicted adventurer — a man in need of a Plan B, according to World Cup-winning coach Sir Clive Woodward — always liable to be picked apart by a canny old Six Nations fox like Warren Gatland.
Perspective will no doubt be gained as this week progresses. Townsend will make the changes required, remove those suffering the worst post-gubbing trauma from the front line, find a way to reinvigorate players ahead of their return to Murrayfield.
We have to believe that, or else what’s the point in carrying on? Before a ball was kicked, France at home had been identified by many as a fixture laden with opportunity for the Scots.
Now? It looms on the horizon like a black-sailed menace, a danger to all the progress made under Vern Cotter and then Townsend himself last summer and autumn.
Over the coming days, we’ll hear plenty of talk about the restorative power of playing at home and the pride of pulling on a strip that, regardless of changing fashions, will always have that thistle over the heart.
The challenge for these players, the ones who survive a much-needed cull, is to fill those shirts. Live up to the finest ideals they’re supposed to embody.
And rid themselves of the black, burning, rage-inducing shame that will rightly haunt their every step between now and victory — the only option — on Sunday.
P.S. WARREN GATLAND continues to emit all the charm of a bar-room bore. He is nobody’s idea of gracious. But what made his ungallant and unsubtle sniping in the aftermath of Saturday’s blowout win by Wales so unbearable was that he had a point. So we had to sit there and take it as Gatland declared he ‘knew’ his team would batter the Scots. Giving Gatland an excuse to gloat? Well done, lads. Another offence to add to your rap sheet.