Scotland no longer whipping boy
AUSTRALIA might be doing it tough, with only one win to show from their past five Tests, but surely the Wallabies couldn't lose to a country with a smaller rugby-playing population than Madagascar.
Frank Hadden, head coach of Scotland - whose playing numbers he insists are 3000 below those of Madagascar - believes they could, and this Sunday (AEDT) at Murrayfield.
With his side having won five matches on the bounce at Murrayfield, including Six Nations victories over England and France this year, Hadden is daring to dream the impossible dream.
Usually the opening remarks of a coach at a pre-Test press conference tend to be bland and forgettable. Hadden's yesterday were little short of a stirring call to arms. Scotland, he said, had been embarrassed more by Australia than by any other opponent.
Not only had the Wallabies inflicted 15 successive defeats on the Scots in retaliation for the harrowing 12-7 loss at Ballymore by Bob Dwyer's side in his first match as Australia coach in 1982, but they almost seemed to have gone out of their way to rub Scottish noses into the dust.
Only twice in that time, Hadden noted, have the Wallabies not topped 30 points against Scotland. On one of those occasions, they scored 29, on the other 27. But now, having painfully clawed back the ground Australia and the other southern hemisphere superpowers had opened up on the Home Unions when the game went professional in the mid-1990s, it's payback time.
"We have got to the stage now where I believe we are going into this game on the weekend with a genuine opportunity to take a famous scalp in the build-up to the World Cup," Hadden said.
There was encouragement for Hadden in Ireland's shutdown of the Wallabies at Lansdowne Road last weekend, even if he does not believe his side can emulate the Irish tactics.
"We probably don't have the capacity to play in the way that Ireland play so it will be a very different game this week, but I still think it will be a very competitive and very entertaining one nonetheless," he said.
Australians might have witnessed the Dublin disaster and concluded the Wallabies are seriously on the slide just when they need to be building for the Rugby World Cup, but Hadden believes that verdict does justice to neither side.
"I think Ireland played exceptionally well," the Scotland coach said.
"I couldn't see how Australia could have done any more about the game because Ireland had such total control of it, and that is what they have been developing for the last wee while.
"Through the likes of Munster, who are the European champions, they have developed a style of play that makes them very difficult to play against. You will spend long periods without the ball, as we did last year against them.
"It was interesting to see whether they could do it in such difficult conditions last weekend and also against a defence of the quality of Australia's, but they could and they certainly are a couple of years further down the track than we are."
Yet even if the Ireland exposed some weaknesses beyond the current capacity of Scotland to exploit, Hadden has stripped away all the layers of complexity his predecessor, Australian Matt Williams, wove around the game, and his team is playing a very simple, very direct pattern.
Still, Hadden has only to look through Australia's starting line-up and see the name of the man he rates above New Zealand playmaker Dan Carter as the best five-eighth in the game to be stopped short in his optimistic tracks.
Hadden's mind goes back to 1998, when he was touring Australia with Scotland team as a member of the coaching staff, when the news broke that Steve Larkham, then the Wallabies full back, was to be used against them at five-eighth in the two-Test series.
"I was helping to coach the backs with John Rutherford and we were rubbing our hands that a full back had been turned into a stand-off, and we thought this was going to be absolutely fantastic," Hadden recalled.
"He had one warm-up game before he played Scotland and we were absolutely gobsmacked at the quality of his performance. It was just quite remarkable."
The 45-3 victory Larkham orchestrated remains the biggest margin Australia has posted against Scotland.
While Larkham remains in the Australia side, directing operations, Hadden will remain wary.
"I mean, Larkham is still the best stand-off in the world," he said.
"He's an absolutely fantastic player.
"I think Carter is playing in a better side and that makes him look better, but what Larkham brings to the table no one else can bring to the table, his vision, his skills."
From Wayne Smith in Edinburgh
Frank Hadden, head coach of Scotland - whose playing numbers he insists are 3000 below those of Madagascar - believes they could, and this Sunday (AEDT) at Murrayfield.
With his side having won five matches on the bounce at Murrayfield, including Six Nations victories over England and France this year, Hadden is daring to dream the impossible dream.
Usually the opening remarks of a coach at a pre-Test press conference tend to be bland and forgettable. Hadden's yesterday were little short of a stirring call to arms. Scotland, he said, had been embarrassed more by Australia than by any other opponent.
Not only had the Wallabies inflicted 15 successive defeats on the Scots in retaliation for the harrowing 12-7 loss at Ballymore by Bob Dwyer's side in his first match as Australia coach in 1982, but they almost seemed to have gone out of their way to rub Scottish noses into the dust.
Only twice in that time, Hadden noted, have the Wallabies not topped 30 points against Scotland. On one of those occasions, they scored 29, on the other 27. But now, having painfully clawed back the ground Australia and the other southern hemisphere superpowers had opened up on the Home Unions when the game went professional in the mid-1990s, it's payback time.
"We have got to the stage now where I believe we are going into this game on the weekend with a genuine opportunity to take a famous scalp in the build-up to the World Cup," Hadden said.
There was encouragement for Hadden in Ireland's shutdown of the Wallabies at Lansdowne Road last weekend, even if he does not believe his side can emulate the Irish tactics.
"We probably don't have the capacity to play in the way that Ireland play so it will be a very different game this week, but I still think it will be a very competitive and very entertaining one nonetheless," he said.
Australians might have witnessed the Dublin disaster and concluded the Wallabies are seriously on the slide just when they need to be building for the Rugby World Cup, but Hadden believes that verdict does justice to neither side.
"I think Ireland played exceptionally well," the Scotland coach said.
"I couldn't see how Australia could have done any more about the game because Ireland had such total control of it, and that is what they have been developing for the last wee while.
"Through the likes of Munster, who are the European champions, they have developed a style of play that makes them very difficult to play against. You will spend long periods without the ball, as we did last year against them.
"It was interesting to see whether they could do it in such difficult conditions last weekend and also against a defence of the quality of Australia's, but they could and they certainly are a couple of years further down the track than we are."
Yet even if the Ireland exposed some weaknesses beyond the current capacity of Scotland to exploit, Hadden has stripped away all the layers of complexity his predecessor, Australian Matt Williams, wove around the game, and his team is playing a very simple, very direct pattern.
Still, Hadden has only to look through Australia's starting line-up and see the name of the man he rates above New Zealand playmaker Dan Carter as the best five-eighth in the game to be stopped short in his optimistic tracks.
Hadden's mind goes back to 1998, when he was touring Australia with Scotland team as a member of the coaching staff, when the news broke that Steve Larkham, then the Wallabies full back, was to be used against them at five-eighth in the two-Test series.
"I was helping to coach the backs with John Rutherford and we were rubbing our hands that a full back had been turned into a stand-off, and we thought this was going to be absolutely fantastic," Hadden recalled.
"He had one warm-up game before he played Scotland and we were absolutely gobsmacked at the quality of his performance. It was just quite remarkable."
The 45-3 victory Larkham orchestrated remains the biggest margin Australia has posted against Scotland.
While Larkham remains in the Australia side, directing operations, Hadden will remain wary.
"I mean, Larkham is still the best stand-off in the world," he said.
"He's an absolutely fantastic player.
"I think Carter is playing in a better side and that makes him look better, but what Larkham brings to the table no one else can bring to the table, his vision, his skills."
From Wayne Smith in Edinburgh
posted by Zo Heri at 5:35 PM
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