Richard Wilson talks to new Scotland coach Andy Robinson ahead of his first Tests in charge in The Independent on Sunday.
"The glance towards the pitch, which is cast in the sharp hopefulness of the late September sun, is one of lingering warmth. His eyes see much out there: exertions stretched and spent, small battles scattered and fought, characters revealed and diminished; all an expression in deeds of what he has come here to say. "It's nice, isn't it?" says Andy Robinson, as though he might be casually remarking about the crispness of his lawn. But he is sitting in a suite high in the sweeping stands of Murrayfield and, for a moment, one of the great warrior spirits of English rugby is lost to himself.
"Such a combative figure, a man so steeped in the gruff certainties of competition that the only definition he seeks is that of winner or loser, seldom grants himself a reprieve from the aggressiveness of his instincts. There is, though, something serene to Robinson, a kind of reassurance or understanding. He has just left a roomful of rugby correspondents after the first of the regular informal briefings he intends to hold as Scotland's head coach and, three months into the job, there is no air of a man still searching for meaning or confirmation.
"This, of course, is the place where Robinson came to reassert himself, to find a way to claim back the authority of his coaching ability and, crucially, to affirm again the sense of himself as an emphatic man of principle and conviction. That was with Edinburgh, the club he took charge of two years ago and guided to fourth then second, their highest ever finishes, in the Magners League. Now, the challenge that again demands so much of his awareness, so much of himself, is to achieve the same progress with Scotland."
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