That’s the trouble with professional sport: you might achieve one aim but people always set you a new and higher target.
Ask Gareth Southgate, a fundamentally decent man who in my opinion over-achieved by getting England to a World Cup semi-final and two European Championship finals. But it wasn’t enough to satisfy an English nation high on a sense of entitlement to victory and now he’s gone.
In the next ten days Scottish rugby faces a similar dilemma. Tonight our under-20 men will take on the USA at the Hive Stadium and having comfortably disposed of Japan after hammering Samoa and Hong Kong China they are just 80 minutes away from returning to the full World Under-20 Championship – and what a tournament in South Africa that’s been, I may say.
The trouble is that the match against Japan was billed as the tournament decider and our under-20s are now expected to do to their American opponents what the full national squad did to the USA in Washington at the weekend.
On paper, Scotland should win cosily, and with head coach Kenny Murray having to make only one injury-enforced change – Ruaraidh Hart for Ryan Burke – he will show that consistency of selection gives strength to the squad.
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I have watched several of the young Scots grow into their roles during the tournament. Liam McConnell has been an outstanding captain alongside fellow back row workhorses Tom Currie and Freddy Douglas. Fergus Watson has been superb at full-back, and Geordie Gwynn and Finlay Doyle are wingers who can run and tackle with the best of them. Centres Findlay Thomson and John Ventisei are equally good in defence or attack.
Andrew MacLean and Conor McAlpine have forged a formidable partnership at 9 and 10, while the front row of Robbie Deans and the Blyth-Lafferty brothers are surely future full caps. Rounding out the 14 who keep their places from Friday is lock forward Euan McVie which means that seven of the pack are products of Edinburgh Rugby’s pro-Academy. And nearly all the squad played some part in the now defunct Super Series so when can we learn how that gap is going to be filled?
The young Americans are a good-well drilled side but I think they lack strength in depth while Murray can look to his bench and know that there is real talent there, with the likes of Seb Stephen, Hector Patterson, Jack Hocking and Dylan Cockburn sure to make an impact when they get on.
I’m confident that Scotland will prevail tonight but the USA will be a tougher nut to crack.
Halfway through the development tour of the Americas, Scotland’s national men’s squad have put themselves in the position of having outclassed Canada and the USA and are thus incandescently hot favourites to beat Chile and Uruguay over the next two weekends. Even changes in personnel have hardly weakened the squad, and the Chileans’ drop to 22nd place in the world rankings – despite beating Belgium and Hong King China over the last two weekends – is indicative of their lowly status. Yet they did at least show up on occasion during last year’s World Cup, and Los Condores are ranked only behind Argentina and Uruguay in South America. Scotland must beat Chile in Santiago at the weekend, and I’ll give my verdict on Uruguay next week.
There is an intriguing connection between Scotland and the Chilean rugby community. Two of the founding fathers of rugby in the country were brothers, Donald and Ian Campbell.
I learned their story back in 2012 when both men were inducted into the International Rugby Board, Hall of Fame. As their names suggest, they were both of Scottish descent, their father Colin born in Argentina but very proud of his Scottish roots. Colin immigrated to Chile and played football for the country, while Donald and Ian, both centres, made their mark on the nascent rugby scene in Santiago prior to the war and after it.
Donald was capped by Chile on their 1938 tour of Argentina before he went to Britain during World War II and joined the RAF, being killed in action in a bombing raid in 1944.
Ian Campbell, who died aged 94 in 2022, is recognised as the most important player in the post-war development of Chilean rugby, and at one time the country even threatened to rival Argentina under Campbell’s leadership.
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His Hall of Fame citation stated that Ian “was made captain of Chile at the inaugural South American Championship in 1951 and retired 10 years later, after 14 years of Test rugby. During the 1950s he was acknowledged by both team-mates and opponents alike as perhaps the most skilful player in South America and an outstanding leader of men.”
An intriguing connection between the two countries ahead of an international match which Scotland should win. Put it this way, if they don’t, Gregor Townsend will have to do a Southgate.
