So know we know. Maybe.
Vern Cotter made it perfectly clear in announcing his final Autumn Internationals squad yesterday that “the executives” had made the decision that he should depart the Scotland head coaching job in June, not him.
Truth be told, he was out of contract and would surely have been tempted by Montpellier and Toulon vying to make him the highest paid coach in rugby, but that wasn’t a decision he had made, at least yet. The SRU “wanted Gregor (Townsend) and we live with that.”
It underlines how curious a process this has been – announcing a change in coaches a year early for one team, let alone two, is downright bizarre – and how fraught with pitfalls. Taking a thoroughly un-Scottish optimistic view forward, what if Cotter’s team sweeps the Autumn Tests and maybe gets a share of the Six Nations Championship in the Spring in his last eight games?
Okay, it’s unlikely. But it was illuminating to hear Cotter speak as if he thought – like many Scottish rugby observers – that his tenure is ending early, and unfinished.
Still, as relaxed and affable yesterday as he’s been since he took over – the pressure is most definitely off – we can be pretty assured that Cotter’s very keen to leave a “follow that” message in Townsend’s in-tray when the Scot moves back to BT Murrayfield.
The New Zealander wasn’t for talking about legacies. But he was illuminating when he talked about how Scotland should approach games against the big guns from now on.
“I think we’ve got to move away from feeling threatened by teams like Australia,” he said. “If we play well we can beat them. If we respect the fundamentals of the game, if we’re physical with them, direct, maintain composure and have a clear plan, we can beat them.”
The World Cup semi-final surely showed that, but Cotter reverted to type when asked whether the re-match in the first Autumn Test would be emotional for him as well as those who played that controversial day at Twickenham.
“Well, I’m not exactly known for my emotion,” he deadpanned.
