Should Andy Robinson go after this 6 nations? (7th Vote)

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All

I decided that I needed to call an EGM to discuss the latest selection for the Italy match. I personally felt it was so woeful, that we needed to have a new vote on the position of a so called 'Manager' of the Scotland Rugby team - Please step forward Mr Robinson - your time is up (well unless the SRU 'like' him and give him a golden position)

Yes 25% 55% 42% 52% 39% 61%
no 30% 20% 37% 32% 54% 36%
Depends if Scotland finish higher that 2nd last 44% 24% 20% 14% 5% 2%

Vote away

Cheers ASBO. Noted. However it pains me to see him getting involved in the RFU's selection process while we are in this mess. Even if its not as a coach or director of rugby, we need people like him involved in the game in Scotland IMO.

Yea i think he should. He's not a bad coach, it's just i think we need a bit of a shakeup and try something new. As frankly except one good win against Ireland we haven't done anything under him in the six nations.

That is a great article - kind of sums up the anger we all feel - and frustration

Sometimes these blogs are cruel - we can vent and make suggestions, but we know they will never make a blind bit of difference - maybe Kevin reads our posts :-)

Risky- he does I know it !

ROBINSON MUST GO -NOW

Two away wins tomorrow would see England finish 4th with a record of won 3 and lost 2, ie two clear wins of whichever of you and Italy finish 5th. What more would it take for the SRFU to realise it's time to send AR hameward tae think again?

Your results are palpably less than the sum of your parts: you have the squad at the moment to be looking at winning 3 or so 6N games a season, not the slightly embarrassing early kick off Wooden Spoon hors d'oeuvres prior to the main course(s) later in the day. Perhaps the most damning indictment is that the fixture planners clearly saw it that way too when this year's 6N fixtures were set up before a ball had been kicked off in January (though I would have reversed the order of the Cardiff and T/ham kick offs too).

For goodness sake.

I've been following this post for ages.

Yes I agree that AR isn't very good.

But the resources at his disposal are worse. Particularly his human resources.

I'd suspect that nobody could have achieved any better with the limited talent available.

Portnoy,

I completely disagree. Scotland have a good scrum and a solid lineout. Their backs remind me of England circa 2004-9: ability but no confidence or flair. I stick to my guns in saying that a top class coach (eg Gatland) would squeeze up to three 6N wins a season out of the current crop of players available to Scotland, not have them nailed on from before Day 1 as last day Wooden Spoon rivals of Italy.

Simon,

just exactly what was good about the scrum last week v Ireland ? It was bloody pathetic and woeful and worse if anything when His Holiness Murray came on. The whole lot with the notable exception of Gray, Hamilton and yes Morrison(limited but sticks to his task) are not up to it. They have not a chance tomorrow at Castrogiovanni and Lo Cicero will crucify Jacobsen and Cross/Murray.

Robinson is a king sized knob who should be hounded back to Bath asap

If we do lose to Italy on Saturday, it will mean that Robinson will equal his 'record' of coaching a national side to 7 straight defeats in a row...

So 11 out of 35 want Andy 'Mr Bean' Robinson to stay. I know what is happening here - its English, Irish and Welsh chaps voting for a stay of execution as they know while he is there Scotland are a urine over ! Clever. Very clever !

ROBINSON MUST GO -NOW

To be fair, c21st, there's a few Scots posters that are happy to point to the 'progress' on the field that we have allegedly made, without necessarily getting the results that deserved apparently. I'm not so convinced myself, but there are some at genuinely hold that view and I'm happy to respect their right to do so, while not agreeing with them. Robinson asked to be judged on results, and I'm happy to oblige. The good thing is I'm more excited about the players available (not always selected) to us today and coming thru than I have been at any time in the last 12 years

Aye ASBO - there are some decent players but Mr Bean will not select them - Jon Welsh and Rob Harley being the obvious ones at least for today's game. Harley would tackle a forest of trees if they were in front of him and is the future Captain of Warriors and Scotland. Once Townsend gets started at the Warriors who knows what will happen with the promising players brought on by Lineen. It really is thoroughly depressing. I mean wtf is that Cuthbert clown doing in today's 22 ?

Welsh, Harley, Weir and Scott should all be in the XXII and no disrespect to the big Bath lad, but he's simply not up to this standard. A brave head coach would have stood up before this tournament and declared that results would be irrelevant cos he was going to be blooding a host of in-form young talent with an eye on the future - then I could live with the inevitable whitewash. But to stick with out-of-form, tried-tested-&-found-wanting players to get results, and to be asked to be judged on this alone - simply unforgivable

+1

I don't think the Ferret will have endeared himself with the blazers at Murrayfield with this piece in today's Herald:

Victory would have a distinctly hollow ring

by Kevin Ferrie, Senior Sports Writer

THEY may have just missed meeting on the fateful ides of March, but two groups of modern gladiators will take to the field of battle in Rome this afternoon.

In terms of the glory on offer for the combatants, though, it is the most meaningless competitive clash a Scotland rugby team has contested.

Both the Scots and hosts Italy had hoped it might be a breakthrough season but, instead, the worst sides in the RBS 6 Nations meet to decide which finishes bottom of the table, whitewashed by the rest.

Scotland have lost all their matches on more occasions than any other team – nine times in all since the tournament became a Five Nations Championship with the introduction of France in 1910 – while Italy have a higher percentage of pointless finishes than any other side, with three in the 12 seasons. Yet never before have Scottish contested the final match of a championship in which neither they nor their opponents have registered even a draw so far.

In a season in which Scotland also failed to qualify for the knockout stages of the World Cup for the first time, their efforts have been a metaphor for everything that is wrong with Scottish rugby. Today's match comes towards the end of the first season under the new regime launched by Moir Lockhead at his first annual meeting as chairman, when he repeatedly said he was looking for some quick wins.

Like Scotland at the start of this season, his executives proved just about capable of taking the easy ones when they were available – Andy Robinson's men won warm-up games and World Cup ties against minnows Romania and Georgia – before making a complete hash of things when confronted with tougher tasks.

What is perhaps most disturbing in all of this is the nature of the response. That was brought home on the day before Scotland's meeting with Ireland last weekend when a leading Irish rugby writer observed the conviviality of the gathered media as Robinson entered the room by enquiring with some incredulity: "Is it always like this?"

The clear implication was that a coach with a similar record in Ireland could not possibly expect such an easy ride. That message was reinforced in a different way yesterday.

While I was driving to the airport to catch my flight to Rome, Radio Scotland's Thought for the Day was provided by a gentleman named Alastair McIntosh, who took Rangers' troubles as his theme. He referred to a blog on the subject that blamed the media for much of their plight, accusing them of feeding "sycophantic rubbish" to the masses.

It is hard not to conclude that the Scottish rugby media have similarly taken their collective eye off the ball when evaluating the performances of the national team. The job is to seek to offer proper perspective and, in that regard, it was refreshing to encounter some sense of awareness of what is really happening when Nick De Luca, the Scotland centre of Italian ancestry, when asked this week whether this match was make or break said it was "more a case of keep your head above water or break . . ."

The reality is Scotland and Italy have become all but competitively detached from the rest of the Six Nations, engaging in their own annual battle for the wooden spoon. Meanwhile, the rest jockey for the right to call themselves the best in Europe. Ireland and England have both registered fine away results against the World Cup finalists France in the past fortnight, while Wales are poised today to secure a third grand slam in eight seasons. Robinson's record is so poor that, if we did not know better, we might suspect him of being a fifth columnist for a cause he espoused just after he took up the job. At the IRB Nations Cup in Romania, he evangelised about the need to encourage lesser nations.

What could possibly make a stronger case for the inclusion of the likes of Romania and Georgia in an extended European competition than his team's results this season? After all, Ireland's margin of victory over Scotland last weekend was greater than Scotland's against Romania in the World Cup, at which Scotland were also unable to register a try against Georgia.

It is appalling that the only argument administrators put forward for refusing to further open up the Six Nations is an economic one. This is Europe's premier international rugby tournament and yet one third of the countries involved – Scotland and Italy – appear to be there simply to make up the numbers, just like those countries' representatives in the Heineken Cup.

At that, Italy are given some defence by historic perspective: the French suffered most of their whitewashes in their first dozen years in the tournament. Italy have only been involved since the "game went open", yet the phrase is far from accurate. It remains a closed, members-only club at the top end and it will continue to be so until the powers that be force the Six Nations to let the rest of Europe in.

Those who think that would be a disaster for Scottish rugby might be right since it would almost certainly result in Scotland slipping down the world rankings even faster than they have been doing.

Surely, though, that would be better than deluding themselves that Scotland are somehow entitled to a place among the elite when performances and results in no way merit it? Perhaps that is what has led to the widespread willingness recently to accept apparent improvements in performance based on reams of statistics . . . the equivalent, surely, of claiming Pete Sampras was a better tennis player than John McEnroe because he served more aces.

Victory today, then, would end Scotland's losing run at six, but it would change nothing in terms of our country's status in the world game.

Brutal or just brutally honest?

Aye but ASBO he is calling a correctly. Too long have we had the cosy press conferences with The Hootsman's cheerleaders for the SRU in tow with whoever. Kevin Ferrie is still furious at the way Sean Lineen was treated and is doling it out in spades to the SRU numpties. Good on yer Kevin

Morning guys

Well I am as frustrated as anyone else, but interesting in that there are more people (than less) "in the know" who are of the opinion AR has set some good foundations since he has been involved in Scottish rugby, and we are not just talking the full international side but he has input into rugby development from the junior schools upwards.

At the end of the day its all about winning matches, but at least most people agree (with the obvious manic exceptions 21C ahem) that we at least competing and have been in winning positions throughout the 6Ns term

Interesting article from Denton on the BBC site
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-union/17405638

Frustrating

The Denton article is depressing. The new generation are a deluded as the last.

Wooden Spoon. Progress?

Portnoy wrote:For goodness sake.

I've been following this post for ages.

Yes I agree that AR isn't very good.

But the resources at his disposal are worse. Particularly his human resources.

I'd suspect that nobody could have achieved any better with the limited talent available.

Reposted. After the Lions of Rome performance.

It was the players on the pitch. Not AR.

AR pulled off Gray too early. But it wasn't the game plan that lost the day.

It was the players.

The same players that are capable of beating Treviso & Aironi away in the PRO12?

What feckin game plan was that then - I didn't see any on show there !

RESIGN ROBINSON AS THE SRU DO NOT HAVE THE COJONES TO BIN YOU

It was the players on the pitch, but we know they are capable of playing better, we have seen it in some Scotland games and for their clubs. So why were they so bad today? Obviously the coaches don't control the execution at the lineout but they should be able to instruct the players on tactics elsewhere, which were totally absent today.

I also think the decision making was poor, and Ford has to take some of the blame, ignoring today's lineout he is good at leading by example, but he also has to make the right decisions about when to kick for touch, go for goal, tap and go. He needed to tell the players to attack with ball in hand when Italy were down to 14 instead of kicking away, they shouldn't need Robinson to tell them that.

But I do think in general Robinson and Townsend have been poor in selection and formulating attacking strategies.

Portnoy wrote:

Portnoy wrote:For goodness sake.

I've been following this post for ages.

Yes I agree that AR isn't very good.

But the resources at his disposal are worse. Particularly his human resources.

I'd suspect that nobody could have achieved any better with the limited talent available.

Reposted. After the Lions of Rome performance.

It was the players on the pitch. Not AR.

AR pulled off Gray too early. But it wasn't the game plan that lost the day.

It was the players.

It's always the players on the pitch. On what basis could you ever sack a coaching staff on that line of argument? In the last two matches we've seen the scrum, lineout, defence, attack and discipline fall to pieces. The selections have been dire and the substitutions worse.

What more needs to happen?

Edinburgh are in the QF of the HC. Glasgow are in a good place in the Rabo and finished second in their HC group. Jim Hamilton has been revitalised this season at Gloucester.

I personally think we are now underachieving at international level. Sometimes a Wooden Spoon will be a fair reflection of the talent available. In this instance I can't agree.

Go