IT IS strangely comforting to know that the new-look, efficient and effective SRU still has a mole lurking somewhere within the national stadium. Last Thursday evening a Union insider wrote a post on a BBC website stating that Gregor Townsend was the new backs' coach for Scotland. The following day Murrayfield confirmed as much.
It has been a meteoric rise for the former Scotland flyhalf who only quit playing less than two years ago in May of 2007. The Border Reivers had their last ever outing at Netherdale and it seemed only appropriate that their most famous son was there
in his favoured No.10 shirt. At the final whistle Townsend was surrounded by his family and friends but not even they could have forecast the speed of his promotion up the coaching ladder.
Townsend was offered the role of backs' coach during a meeting with Frank Hadden in the run-up to Christmas – a position that had previously been filled by Sean Lineen and, before that, by the national coach himself. The former Test player wasted no time in accepting the new role.
"It's very exciting for me," he said last week. "It was a pleasant surprise when Frank made me the offer one week before Christmas. I have to thank my employers, the Winning Scotland Foundation, for making it easy for me. My disappearing for two and a half months at the beginning of the year will put quite a strain on their resources."
The appointment is a temporary one that will last the length of the up-coming Six Nations championship but if things go well there is every chance the deal will become permanent. However, Townsend is quick to point out that he enjoys his current job for the foundation, set up by former Scottish winger and boss of Cairn Energy Sir Bill Gammell, and with Scotland scheduled to play just eights Tests this season there are fewer demands on the new coach than might have otherwise been the case.
Townsend brings to the role almost 12 years of professional rugby experience in addition to the 84 caps that he won with Scotland and the British Lions. Furthermore, the 35-year-old has played in almost every major rugby-playing country in the course of his long career, including stints with the Sharks in South Africa, Manley in Australia, Castres in France and, of course, Northampton in the English Premiership. What he does not bring to the Test table is a whole heap of top level coaching experience.
"I have been doing one day a week with Edinburgh for almost a year now," says Townsend. "I also helped out coaching the Scotland A team last year and I learned a huge amount from Andy Robinson and Rob Moffat during that time about coaching a team rather than just the backs.
"But my position with the Winning Scotland Foundation also means that I have been lucky enough to spend a week with the Queensland Reds which was very worthwhile. They gave me great access to the organisation. I spent time with them in the build-up to their final match against the Waratahs and I sat in the dressing room at half time.
"I was amazed because I had thought that they would not spend much time on Northern Hemisphere rugby but they had up-to-date videos of Leinster and ath and they had a real thirst to improve every aspect of their game. They were very analytical and very good on the scientific side of things, which is maybe what rugby in Australia is about, but the way they actually played the game was not wildly different from the Magners League."
The timing of Townsend's appointment could hardly be better for the novice coach. He is taking over the most promising set of backs Scotland has had for a decade after several seasons when Test tries were as rare as hen's teeth. Any small improvement in the strike rate will be credited to their new coach while Hadden can expect to cop any flak if things don't go according to plan – such is life. It's an enviable way to ease his way into an enviable role, as Townsend appears to realise.
"I am getting involved with some very good players," he admits. "There is more strength in depth now than at any time since 1999 and possibly even more depth than we had back then. If someone is injured now there is no sense of panic because there is someone else to fill the role and the competition for places means it is a good situation to be in.
"If I have a rugby philosophy it is just to get the best out of every player on the park. Different players have different strengths and it was the blend that we got right in 1999," when Townsend, John Leslie and Alan Tait made up a Scotland midfield that many declared the best in world rugby. "My goal is to improve the basic skills of everyone, that's the main thing I have to do. The pass that goes through the hands just that half second quicker means the difference between being tackled beyond the gain line or behind it and, while you can get away with it at a lower level, it is vital at international level. It's different in other sports but in rugby the All Blacks will be doing the same sort of training as the U-14 school side but they will be doing it under far greater pressure.
"Making the right decision at the right time is also crucial, being in the right position, keeping the right depth of alignment, all these minor details add up to the difference between success and failure. It's like getting all the fiddly little bits of a jigsaw in the right place. I see my role as working very closely with the players to help them become the best that they can be. I am very grateful and very lucky to have been given the chance."
With obvious intelligence, and far greater reflection on the game than his instinctive style of playing sometimes suggested, Townsend has a golden opportunity to make his name in the coaching world.
However, the opening does not come without its dangers as any number of players-turned-coaches, from Roy Keane to Martin Johnson, can testify. Townsend's lack of experience may count against him, some successful club coaches must wonder what they have done wrong, and his relatively recent retirement from the game may mean he is a little too close to the players, a charge he denies. "I think I only played with three or four of the guys in the squad. I obviously know the Edinburgh players pretty well because I have been working with them for a year and I was glad to get the experience with Scotland A because there were a lot of the Glasgow guys in that side so one way or another I have worked with most of the players and knowing how they work should be a benefit in my new role."
Townsend's appointment can only be judged by what happens on the field but the former flyhalf's mere presence in the Scotland camp will fuel the interest and fire the imagination of the fans ahead of the upcoming Six Nations.
GREGOR'S GLORIESRECORD BREAKER
Gregor Townsend won 82 caps for Scotland between 1993 and 2003, breaking the caps record. He has since been overhauled by Scott Murray.
HADDEN'S RECALL
He was restored to the Scotland squad in 2005 by Frank Hadden after being axed by Matt Williams but injury prevented him from winning more caps.
LIONS SUCCESS
He won two Lions caps in the 1997 series win over the then world-champion South Africans. Townsend played at stand-off in the victorious first two Tests.
The full article contains 1321 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
