Interview: Andy Robinson, Scotland rugby coach
DEPENDING on who you speak to, Andy Robinson is a deeply complex character or a straightforward 'rugby nut' with no more convoluted a trait than overt passion for the oval-ball sport.
• Robinson takes in the scene at Murrayfield as he draws up his plans for the forthcoming Six Nations Championship
He likes other sports, taught many as a PE teacher in the 1980s, but believes all to be inferior to rugby. He came through a tough apprenticeship in amateur rugby in which he wanted to play in a back row position in which his relatively diminutive size – 5ft 9in and less than 14 stones – did not compute in a world of English giants. But come through it he did, in the openside flanker position he wanted, and to international level.
Had he not it is unlikely we would be here, sitting at Murrayfield Stadium contemplating his first RBS Six Nations Championship as Scotland's head coach. Intriguing, exhilarating and crushing at times, Robinson's career has been unique. The past decade alone has witnessed a journey more fascinating than any enjoyed by his predecessors.
The Noughties began with Robinson stepping from Bath to coach in the England camp, moved on with Lions duties in 2001 and 2005, either side of England's first World Cup triumph in Australia in 2003, fell flat with resignation from the England post in 2006, lifted again with an appointment as Edinburgh coach in 2007 and ended with him back in the Test arena, but this time waving Saltires and developing a quiet, tight-lipped appreciation of O Flower of Scotland.
In this three-part series, we delve into Robinson's psyche, look back with him to his playing days in an effort to understand what shaped the man and the coach of 2010, dissect an approach to the game built up from nearly 30 years of experience and conclude on Wednesday, the day he names his RBS Six Nations squad, with how he believes Scotland can begin to turn around the disappointments of the past decade.
• Andy Robinson fends off a Scottish tackle while playing for England during the 1989 match at Twickenham
He starts with a smile. Frank Hadden did the same and it stood him in good stead for his first Six Nations, a carbon copy of Robinson's opening schedule, which brought three wins. But Robinson could hardly be more different to those that have taken charge of Scotland before him.
The obvious difference is that he is English, born where the cider flows, in Taunton, Somerset. The only other non-Scot to coach the nation's rugby team since rugby 'coaches' first emerged 40 years ago was Matt Williams; a tousy two seasons in 2004-5. Robinson is markedly different to that coach too.
"The key to me I suppose is what's deep in my soul, my values," he says. "Firstly, it is to inspire people to be the best they can be, and I have a real passion for that. I enjoyed being a teacher and trying to inspire young people, and then captaining Bath, leading players, and moving into professional rugby.
"Secondly, I have a desire to be the best coach that I can be, which again comes from inside. The other key aspect of my values is the desire to earn the respect of the people I'm working with, and that comes from what you do every day, respecting people and earning their respect, and that is as strong now as it was when I first started out.
"Finally, I enjoy the challenge and there's no greater challenge than setting your team up and yourself up to play the following week, whether it be Heineken Cup or international rugby where you coach Scotland to play five different teams in the Six Nations.
"To me, rugby is the greatest game you can play because of the physical challenge. You have to be able to deal with that. A lot of teams will lose and not have the consistency because they can't front up week in week out. A team will win one week and then lose because they can't deliver that the following week, and that is something we are working hard on with the Scottish players and teams."
There are many sides to consistency on the field of play, preparation, basic skills and mental approach being other key contributors, but it is revealing that Robinson seizes on the physical aspect. Clearly, that has always attracted Robinson as past teammates recall a terrier-like "little bastard" – that word is used frequently by those who played against him – who seemed to live for confrontation.
He needed that, the determination, inner steel and self-belief for the challenges that lay between him and the top of the game, but the battles also moulded him.
"I was constantly told I would play hooker, that I wasn't big enough or good enough to play anywhere else. I began to realise then that I had to be different; that I had to be the fittest player on the pitch and have the highest work-rate if I was to survive and get the chance to do the job.
"I first joined Bath in 1985 (the year after they won their first national silverware], while in my third year at uni, and then got my first PE job at Radstock Ridlington Comprehensive in Bath. I was 22 then, but at Bath I was up against the club captain Roger Spurrell (ex-paratrooper] for the openside berth.
"But in those days there was a lot of rugby, and a lot of opportunity. There was not yet an official championship in England, but a merit table, and Bath played twice a week. I made my debut in 1986 against Pontypool, and we claimed their long-running home record, then beat Leicester 6-3, then Newport on Wednesday and Llanelli Scarlets on Saturday.
"We trained Mondays, played Tuesdays or Wednesdays, trained Thursdays and played Saturday, and at a club like Bath you had to deliver in every game. The A team had a strong fixture list too, which meant some training sessions were harder than some games."
That provides a vivid picture of the competitiveness in English rugby more than 20 to 30 years ago, and yet England were second-best to Scotland for much of the early 1980s and, from this side of Hadrian's Wall, appeared to lack the fitness of sides featuring Roy Laidlaw, John Rutherford, the Hastings brothers and John Jeffrey, to name a few.
Robinson says the view was similar from the south, and, furthermore, believes that this was another reason why he made it in the game.
"Players becoming really fit was probably the next stage for the game in England to go to in that mid to late 80s period, but that suited me because it gave me a bit of an edge on some of the forwards around at the time.
"I had to work out how I could get past the guys around me. I was on the bench for an England trial before the Six Nations in 1988, and Gary Rees was up against Peter Winterbottom, and I studied those two through the game. I tried to work out how I could be as good as them and what extra I could bring.
"One of the key points was being fitter, so that I could do things or be places they couldn't. There was a confidence about England then that we could play. I made my debut on the tour to Australia in 1988, and we lost, but I remember them coming here that autumn and we won handsomely (28-19] with guys like the Underwoods (Tony and Rory] and Jerry Guscott coming through, a captain in Will Carling, and a pack that could win ball.
"The big step was generating mobility in that pack, so England needed fit forwards. It came, Wade Dooley developed and became a force, Mike Teague came through and Peter went to Harlequins and that made him as a player, developing his handling skills and open play.
"I was involved in the 12-12 draw with Scotland in 1989 and that really opened my eyes to the speed the game was played at with Scotland. There was complete chaos throughout the whole game. I had thought Australia were very quick but it was even quicker against Scotland – balls being kicked out of rucks, so much loose play – and also there was a level of physicality that the Scottish guys brought to it. They were cracking games to play in."
Now a key figure in Bath's dominance of the English game, Robinson toured with the 1989 British and Irish Lions to Australia, but found himself behind skipper Finlay Calder in the race for the No7 jersey. He still played in six non-Test matches and believes he learned a lot about international rugby and the Scottish ethos from the time spent with Calder, Jeffrey, David Sole and others, and the coaching of Ian McGeechan.
It also shaped his thinking on how to blend two nations' preferences for rucking and mauling and how to balance differing styles with which to attack teams. He cites good New Zealand sides, who could maul and ruck, and talks in depth about French teams who had the dynamism to really hurt opponents.
In 1989 Robinson was voted 'European Player of the Year', but was injured and fell out of the Test picture, having to wait 50 internationals before winning his eighth and final cap, six years later.
But for all the agonies suffered trying to alter that stark fact, and from the knowledge that pours forth in discussion of his playing days, and his undoubted 24/7 commitment to the game, life outside rugby has also shaped Robinson. He does not offer it up, but will talk about the influence of his father, Ray, the impact on him of his father's battle with multiple sclerosis; a man of 36, talented all-round sportsman gradually struck down with the disease to the extent that he was confined to a wheelchair and blind.
Ray remained a regular supporter of his son and Bath, where he would have a guide at the Recreation Ground to talk him through the game and then offer his son some words of criticism, and encouragement, afterwards. He died in 2001, aged 61, but remains an inspiration to the now 45-year-old Robinson.
A legendary Scot was also a crucial figure in his early learning, the former Scotland back row and captain Jim Greenwood, who helped pull Scotland from its worst run of defeats (17) in the 1950s. Robinson, it appears, was one of many coaches in whom Greenwood cultivated a deep appreciation of and love for rugby while a student at Loughborough University.
"That was a great place for me to learn," says Robinson, his eyes glistening and smile widening at the memory. "I was lectured by Jim. He was fantastic.
"He's a great man, very softly spoken and a fantastic rugby coach who was so far ahead of his time it was incredible. He is a man who has an aura about him. I remember him lecturing me on the culture of Japan, where he spent time coaching, the sporting culture of America, as well as what was going on here of course. There's no doubt that he fuelled the desire in me."
Robinson continues: "I have fed off many things, as everyone does. In rugby, I have learned something from every coach I worked with, and players.
"After I was injured in 1989, I realised when I was out that I had become too worried about becoming bigger, about the way I though had to play, rather than just focusing on me playing the way that suited me.
"I was never going to be 6ft 3in, or play like someone that size, so I had to understand I had to play more my way. That was when I played at my best, post-that, 91, 92, with ball in hand, good support play; I just went out and played.
"I began to spend most of my time working with the backs at Bath, where Brian Ashton was working on running lines, handling, putting myself under that pressure, so I could support the backs right through games.
"It was an understanding that…" he laughs, "probably that lineouts were boring! To be honest, I'm staggered even now to see the number of lineouts that openside flankers jump in, particularly when they're winning the ball off the top – the first focus has to be on that first ruck and who's going to win it.
"I try to explain that to the guys who lead the lineout. I expect the openside to be there to win that first ball or receive the off-load, for the speed of ball we need. That's an utterly important part of what we do."
That transference of knowledge from Test player to Test coach marks Robinson out from recent Scotland coaches. Whether he feels the need to talk more about his learning from Scots to engender support in his new habitat or not, it is clear he has always had a respect for Scottish rugby which makes his move north less of a mystery.
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