Brewer bids to restore fizz to ailing Scotland

New forwards coach has grand plans but can he really upset his native All Blacks, asks Iain Morrison

ONE RESULT of Scotland winning just two Six Nations ties in the last 10 outings was the departure of forwards coach George Graham from Murrayfield. This was a welcome move towards accountability in Scottish rugby although whether the right man was held accountable is still being debated.

Graham's replacement is a foreigner in the shape of New Zealander Mike Brewer. It may be an odd claim for someone who won 32 All Black caps but he is still regarded as one of the nearly men of New Zealand rugby. His playing career, blighted by bad luck, bad timing and injury, never quite scaled the heights that everyone expected when he first turned out for his country aged 21.

Brewer was injured immediately before the 1987 and 1991 World Cups and when he did finally appear in the South African final in 1995 the All Blacks played second fiddle to fate, the dreams of an entire nation and a suspicious waitress named "Suzie" who may have laced their food.

Moreover, Brewer could have been captain. He had been due to take over from Gary Whetton in 1992 but yet another injury allowed Sean Fitzpatrick to step up to the mark and he wasn't for moving. Brewer eventually led the All Blacks five times but never in a Test match and the NZRFU's website states, "he never quite achieved the superstar status as a player that seemed his inevitable destiny".

You could say something similar about a coaching career that has seen both highs and lows. Brewer marched West Hartlepool into England's top division and he marched them straight back down again the following year. The coach is wryly amusing about leading the Italian side L'Aquila to a first ever victory against Benetton Treviso ("in Benetton", according to Brewer). In the aftermath of this historic achievement most of the L'Aquila squad wept tears of joy whereas Brewer hung his head in his hands. He alone realised that the famous victory meant Heineken Cup rugby. It proved a step too far for his young side who promptly lost 91-10 to Stade Francais the following year despite the referee stopping the match seven minutes early.

But Brewer is best known as Leinster's forward coach these last three years. The perfect match some would say; the nearly man of New Zealand teaming up with one of Europe's serial underachievers. The Dubliners have been frustratingly inconsistent over the years, capable of greatness as when stunning Toulouse 35-41 in the south of France but equally capable of jeopardising their entire European campaign by losing to Edinburgh at Murrayfield as has happened in the last two seasons.

"The Leinster forwards were known for bottling it a bit," says their erstwhile coach. "They couldn't win the big games in Europe. My remit was to build a pack that could win the Magners League and the Heineken Cup. Last year we had a pretty diamond pack but we started to fall away in the backs."

Brewer points the finger at the Leinster quick men, which may have something to do with the issues he had with the backs coach, Australian David Knox. The two did not speak for the final eight months of their employment.

There was also a story that Brewer walked out on Leinster in the middle of last season to coach club side Lansdowne. Again the Kiwi does not deny it but he says that his action was part of a wider contractual dispute with Leinster. "They tried to change my terms and conditions in the middle of my contract and it ended with their lawyer meeting with my lawyer in a room and them realising that they would be in breach."

Clearly this is a man who is not going to back down from a challenge and sure enough Brewer fights to defend his record, insisting that Leinster's forwards made huge strides under his tutelage, especially on the technical side of things. Last year's Magners league triumph by the Dubliners can't be discounted but it will be interesting to see what Jonno Gibbes, another former All Black flanker and Leinster's new forwards coach, does with the Dubliners this year. The 52-6 drubbing they meted out to Edinburgh promises much but ultimately they will be judged on their Heineken Cup run where there is an almost tangible desperation to match Munster, their hugely successful southern cousins. Yesterday's European victory at Murrayfield was their first in three years – you have to hope that the SRU have hired the right former All Black breakaway.

Meanwhile Scotland's forwards coach mixes some typical Kiwi common sense with several outlandish claims that don't bear much scrutiny. At one point he insists "you don't bullshit the player" and in the next breath he claims that "Euan Murray, Geoff Cross and Alasdair Dickinson are as good at tighthead as anyone in the world at the moment". Well, he can't have it both ways.

Like national coach Frank Hadden, Brewer likes to talk up the confidence of the players he works with. "Players will say all the nice things in the world about what they will do for their country and what they will do for their club but if they don't believe in themselves they're not going to perform." But, like his immediate boss, the Kiwi fails to see the limits of such a strategy. He who praises everyone, praises no one.

Brewer has also promised to make the Scottish forwards the equal of the All Blacks and insists this is not impossible. "Up until the last few seasons the main difference between New Zealand and the Northern Hemisphere was competition. When I played in the amateur days it didn't matter if I got injured because there was someone else to take my place. Whereas in the Northern Hemisphere a classic example is (former Ireland forward] Victor Costello, a guy I worked with. It didn't matter how well he played or how hard he trained, he knew he was going to get picked.

"The environment's changed now. After 10 years of professional rugby all the players currently playing have come through the system. They have been earmarked at the age of 16 and they have come through the professional system whereby physically they are pretty much the same as the physical specimens being produced in New Zealand. And with that there are more numbers."

"We have identified 24 forwards who we could choose to play in the autumn tests," Brewer continues. "Looking more closely at them the average age is just 24 and, despite that, the average international experience is two to two-and-a-half years. This squad has got seven or eight years of international rugby in front of them and that is an exciting start. I'm not saying that there are six guys competing for every shirt but New Zealand doesn't have six guys competing for the fly-half spot or the openside's shirt."

Brewer's argument about physical conditioning is spot on but environment is all important in rugby development and Scotland's players don't enjoy anything like the same intensity of matches that their Kiwi counterparts experience every week. However if his point about increased competition in Scotland is true it only applies in a very limited number of positions.

The coach will get an early opportunity to see just how his new charges compare since the men he wants to emulate will appear at Murrayfield on November 8 when New Zealand visit for the first time since Hadden sent out a weakened team in the World Cup. And there may be danger of a re-run.

"We profile the opposition and pick a team to beat them," says Brewer. "The team we pick against the All Blacks may be quite different to the team we pick against South Africa."

There are no IRB ranking points for losing so Scotland need a result against the All Blacks or the Springboks to leap-frog Ireland in the rankings, achieve a better seeding and thereby ease their progress to the 2011 World Cup quarter-finals. Hadden might eye up the two big November Tests and hold back his best XV for the Boks, reasoning that the world champions look marginally more vulnerable than New Zealand.

Might the side that is sent out against the All Blacks look like a weakened team? "Not if I have any say in selection." The Kiwi coach's response nearly answers the question.

BREWER DISTILLED

• EARLY DAYS

Born in Pukekohe, New Zealand, on November 6, 1964, Mike Brewer's potential as a player of outstanding promise was realised when he was named captain of his club side Otago at 20. The back row forward made his All Blacks debut against France in June 1986 and went on to win 32 Test caps.

• WORLD CUP FINALIST

Injuries conspired to rob Brewer of many more caps and he missed the 1987 and 1991 World Cups, the latter in controversial circumstances when, on the eve of the tournament, he was singled out for a rigorous medical test, which he failed. He was part of the squad at the 1995 World Cup and played in the final as New Zealand lost 15-12 to hosts South Africa.

• COACHING CAREER

Spells at West Hartlepool, Benetton Treviso, Leinster and Lansdowne before being named Scotland forwards coach in August.