Tom English: 'After all the chat and the analysis they'll be giving it to Andy Robinson'

LET'S BE clear about this. I am among the world's worst tipsters. I have cornered the market in gambling idiocy across a wide range of sports over the years. I am Mr Consistency. I always back the wrong one. So I'm marking your card here. I'm coming clean. Before I present you with the standout bet of the millennium I want you to know what kind of character you're dealing with here. Flawed, but in this instance, absolutely certain about a cast-iron plunger.

OK, here we go. This is the punter's charter for leaving the recession behind in the rear-view mirror of your brand new Bugatti Veyron which you'll pay for in cash (a mere eight hundred grand) because that'll seem like a snip given the money you're about to come into. In your new life of excess, you won't miss eight hundred large. Not for a second.

Step one: Find a bookmaker who will offer you odds on the new Scotland rugby coach.

Step two: Ask about Sean Lineen and Mike Brewer like you're seriously considering backing them. Maybe throw in some other names just to confuse the issue.

Step three: Almost as an after-thought look for odds on Andy Robinson.

Step four: Sell your house, your car, your soul and have it on Robinson at whatever odds that are offered to you.

Step five: Buy a Bugatti Veyron.

On Friday, the SRU announced its interview panel for the Scotland gig. Or to give it another name, the Andy Robinson Appreciation Society. Andy Nicol is one of the three chosen men to sit in judgment. Nicol was Robinson's captain at Bath when they won the Heineken Cup in 1998. That's handy. Gordon Bulloch is the second of the three. Bulloch was hand-picked for the Lions tour of 2005 by the forwards coach – Robinson. Third, Andy Irvine, who has gone on record in full gush-fest about the work the Englishman has done at Edinburgh.

Now, they're independently minded, of course they are. They're going to take a serious look at the 30 or so applicants and whittle them down to about half a dozen live contenders. This will be an exhaustive phase of proceedings. Other "experts" will be consulted we are told. Huge amounts of research will be done on each man's background and after all the chat and all the analysis they'll be giving it to Robinson.

He's on their doorstep, he's done well with Edinburgh, he's an impressive man and he won't break the bank. There won't be any protest if he's the guy. If he gets it, fair play. I'd have grave reservations about Edinburgh's future if he left them, but that's another day's work. Robinson would be a reasonable appointment, if an unimaginative one. Look, Nicol was a fine player and an excellent captain, but he is not a coach. Bulloch is a stand-up guy and a good leader, but he's not a coach either. Irvine was a genius and is a legend, but he brings up the hat-trick in non-coaches who are going to select the new coach.

They are set up to play it safe. Remember, Jim Telfer and Ian McGeechan were knocking about the scene when Matt Williams talked his way into the job. Two veteran stagers fell for the Australian's patter. Do we really think that three inexperienced guys like Nicol, Bulloch and Irvine are going to take a gamble when Telfer and McGeechan went down that road before them and got it so horribly wrong? The chances are they're going to give it to the man they already know rather than the devil they don't.

I'd like to know how much research they are doing about the respective merits of the coaches in the Super 14. Who's hot and who's not? Who's a bluffer and who's the real deal and are they interested in throwing their hat in the ring? I'd like to know if they have, or if they are intending to approach, a big beast who may not have applied.

Jake White, for example. Or Shaun Edwards. Or Eddie Jones. Or Gert Smal, the hugely influential Ireland number two. How far and how wide have they cast their net? Gordon McKie said the other day that the money on offer is chunky and that the head coach will get to pick his own backroom team. That's encouraging.

But lots of things should trouble us about the interview panel, not just their lack of experience in assessing a coach's true worth. That way of doing things has been tried before and it didn't work. When Frank Hadden got it, it was one of these three-man panels who smoothed the way. That time it was John Jeffrey, John Rutherford and Irvine again. And they got it wrong. Hadden had one great season and three wretched ones. He was not a success unless we've all brought the bar so low that one win a season in the Six Nations championships is now deemed not all that bad.

Reading the signs, it's going to be Robinson. In setting up its panel of experts to ask the questions of the prospective candidates, the SRU told us much about the way it's thinking. Is it a coincidence that shortly after the announcement of the panel was made on Friday it was nigh on impossible to have a bet on Robinson to succeed Hadden? The bookies certainly think Robinson is a racing certainty. I managed to get a few quid on at a price. At this admittedly early stage in proceedings, I'm looking on it as free money.

PETER DE Villiers has been talking of his shock about the selection of the Lions. Sure, there were some surprises, some eye-catching inclusions, some incredible omissions, principally Tom Croft and Delon Armitage. But when De Villiers tries to pick holes in the squad, and in the choice of Lions captain, we should see it for what it is: the first blast of the phony war.

De Villiers' statements have been the source of much comedic value in South Africa, so let's not take the man all that seriously as he continues his sledging. This, after all, is what he said after his Springboks suffered a humbling defeat in the Tri-Nations: "The same people who threw their robes on the ground when Jesus rode on a donkey were the same people who crowned him and hit him with sticks and stuff like that, and were the same people who said afterwards how we shouldn't have done that, he's the son of God. But I'm not saying I'm God."

Cheers for clearing that up, Peter.