Robinson plays down talk of historic win
scots well prepared for their aussie challenge
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Andy Robinson is refusing to entertain any talk of Scotland being on the brink of making history against Australia.
Robinson was even more businesslike than usual a little over 24 hours before today’s autumn international at Murrayfield as he shrugged off the loss of co-captain Mike Blair to an ankle injury.
The withdrawal of their replacement scrum half could prove a blow to Scotland’s hopes of beating Australia for the first time in 27 years.
With or without Blair, ending a sequence of 16 successive defeats to the Wallabies is a result which would go down in Scottish rugby folklore and convince many of the sceptics that Robinson is the man to revive the country’s flagging fortunes.
But the former England manager would not be drawn on the consequences of victory.
He said: “It’s about the first kick-off and how we perform from there.
“You prepare a team that’s ready to go and it’s about what happens in the 80 minutes that’s key.”
Robinson has demanded a 15% improvement in all areas from his first match in charge against Fiji last weekend.
And although he has been pleased with his squad’s response to that challenge, he knows training-ground performances will count for nothing if they are not replicated on the field today.
He said: “The players are well prepared, they’ve shown a great attitude.
“It’s about delivering, as in all games.
“We respect the way Australia play, but we’ve got to get stuck into them and perform at our very best.”
As far as Robinson is concerned that means taking point-scoring opportunities whenever they arise, be it from tries, penalties or drop goals.
He said: “Within all games, you want speed of ball, you want to go forward, you’ve got to look after the ball, but you’ve got to look at different ways of scoring points.
“That’s going to be our challenge this weekend, how we’re going to open up the Australian defence.”
Australia on Thursday named a team which showed only one change from Sunday’s 20-20 draw in Ireland, which ended their hopes of completing a grand slam tour.
Robinson said: “They’re a quality team and they have quality players throughout their squad, so it wouldn’t matter who they picked.
“There are some very good battles across the pitch: Moray Low against Ben Robinson is a cracker — both did well last week; I think the lineout battle will be key to who can dominate possession; Johnnie Barclay facing up to George Smith — who’s going to win the key ball? The nines, the 10s, you can go throughout the squad.
“However, the main thing is the team performs and each individual’s got to be able to perform for the team.”
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