WHEN a team is on a long losing run, it is common for the head coach in question to exhibit anger or frustration after each defeat. Not so Bryan Easson.
Scotland’s 55-0 loss to France in the TikTok Women’s Six Nations on Sunday was their 12th on the bounce in all competitions. But rather than indulge in rancour or recriminations, Easson, as is his custom, preferred to project a semblance of serenity.
In part, this may be a strategy designed to ease the pressure on his players; to prevent the accumulated gloom of loss after loss from becoming too heavy a burden. But it is also apparently because the coach believes that the results only tell part of the story, and that, despite what that run of losses may suggest, his team are making progress.
“I think you’ve already seen progress from last year,” Easson insisted after the match in Brittany – Scotland’s third loss in this year’s Championship following a 58-7 defeat by England in Newcastle and a 34-22 loss to Wales at the DAM Health Stadium.
“Let’s look at the three games we’ve played – Wales was decided in pretty much the last play of the game, then we’ve played the best and the third-best teams in the world.
“We’re playing against some of the best teams in the world who have been professional for a long time and have got a massive amount of players available. To compare us against England and France at the moment – I don’t think we can yet. But the Welsh game, then Italy and Ireland
– that’s where we want to gauge ourselves.”
Italy and Ireland visit the DAM Health this Saturday and next, and we will see what happens there. As things stand, however, Easson’s assertion of progress seems implausible.
Yes, the Wales game was in the balance until the last few minutes. But it still ended up as a 12-point defeat, whereas in both of last year’s matches against the Welsh, Scotland picked up losing bonus points. Judging purely on those results, there has been no progress in that fixture. The curious thing is that, of Scotland’s nine defeats in 2022, six were within bonus-point margins - the others being the Six Nations games against Ireland and Italy, the friendly defeat by the USA and the World Cup loss to Australia. The fact that so many games ended up in the same way certainly showed that the team were able to compete - but also suggested that they lacked the hard-edged self-belief needed to ensure they ended up on the right side of tight results.
That contrasted sharply with the first year and a bit of Easson’s tenure. First appointed interim head coach in August 2020, Easson was handed the full-time role in December of that year after guiding the team to a 13-13 draw with France.
In the 2021 Six Nations, truncated by the pandemic, Scotland beat Wales by seven points in a play-off to avoid the Wooden Spoon. Then, after losing to Italy in the first of three World Cup qualifiers, they beat Spain by five points and Ireland by two. Both of those games went down to the wire, and in both cases, Scotland showed nerves of steel.
In their last game of that year, they beat Japan in a friendly. Then, just days later, Scotland forward Siobhan Cattigan died in tragic circumstances.
It is impossible to quantify the emotional impact that the loss of their team-mate had on the squad. Let us just say, at the risk of severe understatement, that the resumption of normal life cannot have been easy.
And yet, in their first outing of 2022, Scotland played with consummate professionalism to defeat Colombia 59-3 in a final qualifier to make it through to the World Cup finals for the first time in 12 years. Yes, the Colombians were at best modest opposition, but that match was precisely the kind of proverbial banana skin on which so many Scottish sides of the past have slipped up. Since, then, though, we have seen nothing but defeats. Five in the 2022 Six Nations. A friendly loss to the USA. Three defeats in the World Cup proper. And now three more in this year’s Championship.
As far as can be ascertained from the at-times-inexact national team archive, this is now the longest losing streak in the team’s history if we take all games into account. Looking purely at the Six Nations, though, the current run of eight defeats is nowhere close to the absolute nadir reached between 2011 and 2016, when every single game was lost.
You would bet on this run ending long before it reaches such a length, and the upcoming Ireland match in particular looks very winnable. But, Easson’s unworldly optimism notwithstanding, it will surely take a lot more than one positive result to provide proof that the national team has emerged from its present slump.
