GAME ON FOR LAST STAND OF COTTER

OVERVIEW

THEY would not contemplate installing anything as uncouth as a steamie in the leafy grounds of Fulham’s Hurlingham Club, but wherever the locals go to get the creases put into their croquet flannels, Vern Cotter was the talk of it this week.

As the RBS 6 Nations was officially launched, it was a setting made for an apt metaphor and with the mallards walking across the pretty little ponds adorned with warnings, thoughts of lame ducks and thin ice were impossible to shut out.

In surroundings such as these, of course, such matters are generally discussed in more polite terms, but the bafflement that the Scotland coach’s sacking/mutually agreed way-going (delete according to receptiveness to the official line) has generated among his peers was best demonstrated by Eddie Jones’ response when he was asked his opinion.

“You’re trying to get me into trouble here, mate,” said England’s Australian coach. “Look, Vern’s done a great job there. You look back at the autumn series and the fact they should have beaten Australia; they played better than them and didn’t beat them.

“If they turn around those close defeats to victories, Vern’s going to be looked at in a completely different light. He’s done a wonderful job.

“He’s been very strategic in how he’s built the selection depth up in a small country where it’s hard because you haven’t got many players, so to build up depth is a wonderful achievement. Whether he wants to go, whether he should go, that’s not for me.”

Others among the gathering knew the outgoing Scotland head coach rather better, but claimed to be no better informed. “I would say I am a bit surprised they are letting him go,” said Guy Noves, a long-time rival of Cotter’s when they were in the French club game in charge of Toulouse and Clermont Auvergne.

“Maybe there is a common