Scottish boss defends under-fire Johnson

Unlike Johnson Buzzard, Deans was able to win trophies esp. In the tougest club comp in the world and Scotland didnt have to play the 2 best teams in the world.

The guy is Teflon. Managed to assume the glow of Ruddock's success with Wales but seemingly escaped his own dreadful failures when given the reins. Then got a Wallaby gig on his CV purely due to his 'mateship' (a peculiar Australian term describing how people make really, really bad decisions with no basis in logic, probity or commercial reality) with Knuckles but the fact he was ejected as part of that backroom failure seems forgotten. Then declares himself fully committed to the US cause before immediately leaving them in the lurch at the merest whiff of a mainstream wallet. He's a sound bite and seemingly a consummate salesman of his own dubious CV. I really don't like the man.

'I always thought that they missed a trick in restricting their home games to Gala, and thereby seemingly only appealing to Scottish fans.' Well the issues are still that the team was for Scottish Rugby and fans still have to travel a long way to make 7:30 kick offs after work on a wet Friday night. Having split home bases is difficult and has costed Munster a lot of time and money. Training was split between Cork and Limerick, next season the training will permanent based in Limerick who will have a UC style set up for Munster. There is good transport between the two cities for supporters to get matches. In the Borders case it's much worse with players coming from all over just to get to training and transport is poor. Gala is too small to accommodate out of town players. They did get reasonable support considering. Caledonia are looking at splitting matches between Perth and Aberdeen but that is unlikely as the money and funding is in Aberdeen plus you get the Munster like politics if the matches and training are split between the two cities. I suggest you look at the Caledonia Reds facebook page there are some good players that have come out of that region who have been fed in to Glasgow. Glasgow might struggle if the Reds get set up and keep their locally developed players. That will force Glasgow to source players from elsewhere In essence it could end up being a proper local team that Scottish Rugby has been crying out for. It will also help develop rugby in the north of Scotland.

Deep fried Snickers are much better then their Mars counterparts. Whatever one does, one must stay AWAY from the deep fried pizzas. Those things will kill you.

Scotland have some good backs like Laidlaw, Matt Scott (he gave SA a lot of grief in the June test match), Stuart Hogg, Tim Visser, Maitland, Sean Lamont and healthy backrow stocks but Johnson insists on playing players out of position. 10 has been a problem position since Craig Chalmers retired. Johnson is the Scottish version of PSA and Lievremont he doesn't know what his best side is and how to use them.

Hahaha something I have never tried actually! Might give it a go some day!

Like Robbie Deans on behalf of the NZRU.....

What happened? Deep fried Mars bars happened. ;)

Interesting posts Hardcore and Lion, didn't know about Scotland rugby being regional (to some extent). The bizarre thing is that it also affected Scottish football pretty much at the same time. Growing up in the 80s I remember Scotland being more than ok in both sports. Then no one really replaced the Hastings/ Dalglish generation. Rangers and Celtic were feared all over Europe and even Hibs had a decent team. What happened that could explain this? The economical crisis that affected the northern part of the UK, people moving to the south?

Australians are infiltrating and destroying Scottish rugby, it started with Matt Williams and his 10 year plan.

How Johnson still gets jobs amazes me.

This is the crux of the problem. Scottish rugby was based in towns like Gala and Hawick which have populations under 1500. There's no way they could compete when professionalism arrived - imagine professional sporting teams in Collarenabri, NSW or Olary, SA or the tiniest township in your State. The Borders are also some of the most isolated parts of the UK in terms of transport links and infrastructure. The Districts were indeed historical but they mainly played touring sides and, outside of rugby, there was no national consciousness of them; as opposed to Ireland where Leinster, Munster, Ulster and Connaught are 1500+ year old political and sporting entities well supported by the locals. Thre was never an easy path to professionalism for the SRU but they did manage to make the very worst of a bad situation. Finally they have a very professional, experienced board and I can forsee big improvements, mainly off the pitch, but that will eventually affect on pitch performance - and in a sustainable way, not praying for groups of freakily talented players to randomly appear. On the subject of Scott Johnson. He is a charlatan, Scotland should never have touched him, and Cotter arriving gave them the perfect opportunity to get rid of him, they should have taken it.

I always thought it a shame that the Reivers were so short-lived. The campaign to keep them going disintegrated pretty quickly too IIRC. I always thought that they missed a trick in restricting their home games to Gala, and thereby seemingly only appealing to Scottish fans. There are many English rugby fans in North-East England (my dad being one such example) for whom the only other big local club are the Newcastle Falcons. Given that the Falcons play in black and were once owned by Sir John Hall, the then-owner of Newcastle United, there are some in the area (notably those from Sunderland) who don't feel any affinity to that club. Had the Reivers (a name which historically alludes to raiders from both sides of the border) had the opportunity to play the occasional game away from Gala - in the same way that, say Hawthorn play in Tasmania - I reckon that they might have got themselves a fair bit of English support too, which could have made it harder for the SRU to shut them down.

The problem that Scotland has its Rugby demographics. Its problem is that the strongholds are in the sparsely populated Border towns. This means that amateur players and supporters have to travel distances to matches. The low population market and those factors effected the short lived Borders pro team. With Rugby being popular in a rural area and to some extent in Edinburgh rather then in its biggest city in Glasgow which is a football town obviously effects interest levels, participation levels, pitch numbers and crowds. The SRU made massive mistakes in the switch to professionalism that Ireland didn't make. They threw big money in to Murrayfield which created significant debts. That money should have been spent on marketing, making sure the professional teams had grounds, development, etc. With the huge debt they haven't been able to invest as much as they should have. Like Ireland they had a strong club scene but there wasn't enough money to have a fully pro league so they went on the historic districts (Edinburgh and Glasgow was the first inter district match in Rugby). The districts didn't have the money to develop their fan bases and get to the professional levels that France and England were getting to. Due to poor funding Caledonia and Borders closed and merged in to Edinburgh and Glasgow. Edinburgh tried to get private funding and that fell through so the SRU took over. As a result they can't afford ground rent so they are stuck at Murrayfield. Finding a proper home in Edinburgh isn't easy. Hearts are flat broke but Tynecastle's pitch is too small for Rugby. You can't have a decent test side picked out of just two teams and the exiles team London Scottish isn't an AP team. Also makes it difficult for fans who aren't in Edinburgh and Glasgow to travel to matches to follow those teams. An awful mess.

The Scots shouldn't have hired Johnson. Since he left Wales he hasn't stuck out or performed in his multiple roles. Johnson has had the same issues that Matt Williams had. No faith in his players and very odd selections. Helost the dressing room when he dropped captain Kelly Brown during the 6 Nations. Scotland came third last season but that was after knocking over Italy who came fourth through beating France and Ireland which wont happen every year. Their participation levels are increasing, Murrayfield is getting a new pitch similar to what Twickenham has and club comps are getting revamped so changes are happening. Caledonian Reds are circling to get reintroduced as the third professional based out of Aberdeen. For it to happen they are relying on outside money which they have got some expressions of interest.

Scotland need to do 8 match 2 test tours to NZ or Sth Africa every few years to get them up to date with rugby. It will improve them. Scotland v Canterbury, Southland, Waikato etc.... Theyv are getting left behind at a fast rate. The odd win against a Wallaby B team does them no good. Gives them a false dawn.

Scotland is a small rugby nation anyway. What do people expect from a small rugby nation up against England, France & Wales. Even Ireland's domestic rugby scene is massive compared to Scotland's. Scotland & Italy battling the wooden spoon seems normal to me. It like Argentina at the moment in the RC. Chuck in Fiji & Samoa into the RC and they would struggle too. They'd get the odd boil over against the Wallabies but they would never win it. I can't see Scotland or Italy winning the 6N anytime soon. I'm only being realistic.

Well you know despite the fact that Scotland actually won the five/six nations in 1999? Predictability in the negative is the norm for Scotland these troubled times..Its well on guaranteed that Scotland along with long-suffering Italy will finish bottom of the comp every year.Its also guaranteed that whoever the desperate person is to swallow hard taking the poisoned chalice of National Coach of Scotland will find their career and reputation ripped to shreds on the rocks of scottish public opinion