THERE is a weary reluctance in returning to the stand-off issue in Scottish rugby, but if Scotland are to give themselves a chance of a good World Cup draw in their final Test for five months it is impossible to escape the feeling that the selection at No10 for Saturday's second match in Argentina holds the key.
Fittingly, perhaps, former Scotland stand-off Duncan Hodge was put up by the tour management for interview yesterday with the squad back in Buenos Aires and fully debriefed from their 21-15 first Test defeat in Rosario. Hodge's first tour with Scotla
nd was to Argentina in 1994, as an 19-year-old, where he played in midweek games, but was an unused replacement in the Test matches.
Now, he is the youngest member of the coaching staff and, having watched the team lose by one point and then two in the two Buenos Aires Tests 14 years ago, he found himself in a similar position last weekend. He brings insight, therefore, into the difficulties in beating the Pumas, and also the influence of a stand-off.
The team for the second Test will not be announced until Thursday, though the coaches have deliberated over it already. Hodge would not be drawn on nor endorse any changes, but when asked about the option of replacing Dan Parks with Phil Godman, and Godman's abilities, he said he was confident his former Edinburgh protege could step up if asked, despite more than a year out of the Test picture.
"Phil last played in the Six Nations last year and this season he has come on," he said. "Certain things have helped that – goal-kicking, extra pressure, and him being a year older probably.
"Phil has a great range of kicks. Certainly from the games I've seen with Edinburgh this season, guys around him like Nick De Luca and Ben Cairns are playing well, so he's obviously good at bringing guys into the game, but then again it's very different at international level and he'll play with Graeme Morrison, who he's not used to in the same way as the other two.
"A Scotland environment is different with all these other people, not like a club environment where you're quite comfortable. I keep saying to the guys that there is a huge difference between playing pro rugby and international rugby. It's very hard to explain, but there is just is a massive difference in terms of time, pressure, the physical side of it, everything."
There was perhaps an inadvertent slip there, with the suggestion that Godman and Morrison may pair up, but while that would show faith in Morrison, this weekend is simply about winning and that would miss the chance to team up the Edinburgh quartet of Blair, Godman, De Luca and Cairns in a fashion that served Wales well with their Ospreys combinations in the Six Nations.
There is no hiding the pressure around this Test match. The defeat at the weekend has not altered Scotland's tenth place in the IRB rankings, but Fiji's win over Samoa in the Pacific Nations Cup has cut the Scots further adrift from ninth. Scotland must win in Buenos Aires to have any realistic chance of catching Ireland in eighth spot before the end of the year and securing a place in the pot of second seeds for the 2011 World Cup draw. Being a third seed would make a quarter-final place more difficult to achieve than ever.
Hodge acknowledged that a more clinical approach was necessary from Scotland this week and admitted that changing the stand-off's approach was not something achievable in the space of a week.
"The bottom line is still that we're not scoring as many tries as we would like and I don't think anyone would deny that," he said. "We're still getting chances to win games, still kicking penalties and so are in the right areas of the pitch, but if we could average a try-and-a-half-a-game, on top of 15 points at goal then we'd be winning a lot of games.
"(Stand-off] is like any position. People have their habits and their strengths and you can tinker with them, but it takes years and years to completely change someone. If you're talking about the timespan of a tour; if you were to say to Phil we want you to change X, or to Parksy 'change Y', well these things take a long time and they are also dependant on a whole load of things around them."
Argentina yesterday drafted five players into their squad – Test wings Federico Martin Aramburu (Perpignan), Horacio Agulla (Dax) and Lucas Borges (Treviso), experienced full-back Federico Serra from local club San Isidro and Alvario Garindo from Beziers – which is likely to strengthen their back division. Hodge added: "(Argentina] didn't change much last week and will come at us with a similar approach this week, but I've no doubts they will improve – we have to improve by a greater margin."
The full article contains 850 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
