FB and the Missing Openside

There he was strutting down Roseburn St, his man boobs all puffed up as he revelled in the victory in Rome - never mind that he told the press he wasn't vindicated, everyone would would know that he was.  The victory in Rome was his and best of all, the French have a coach nearly as clueless as himself, no wonder he was whistling as he walked.

Just as he thought he might treat himself to a wee sugary bun a voice called out;

"Oi FB you clueless muppet"

Who said that thought the jowly one as he gazed around.

"Pick our best openside you muppet"

And there we have it folks - the voice assailing the FB knows more about the game than the man who is currently our head coach and soon to be director of rugby.

For the fourth game in a row he's ignored the two best opensides available to Scotland - Ross Rennie and John Barclay are in superb form - whilst a case could be made for not selecting Rennie who was bizarrely loaned out by another clueless foreign coach in the Scottish game - not selecting Barclay is just bewildering. He's been scoring 70m tries and strangling the life out teams and every Llanelli fan is utterly bemused as to why he isn't selected.  Now, if Rennie were in the squad then there might be a case for not selecting Barclay, but he isn't and for the third game in a row he's going to play a player who is not fit to lace the boots of Barclay and Rennie.

Why would the FB do this some of you might ask?  Well he's clueless - but he's also got an ego that's bigger than his arse and he's backed himself into a corner with the No 7 jersey.

When the FB took charge last year, he's consistently made a fool of himself with selection and tactics in the backrow - it's like watching an Amazonian tribesman with an iPad.  If he didn't have someone to stop him he'd probably use a flanker for stirring his tea or banging some nails into the wall - he just doesn't have a clue.

He's looked around and seen some clubs and countries picking these awful hybrid backrows full of 3 players of the same size and skillset and thought - ooh ooh that looks good.  Last year he had us not competing at the breakdown - the man is a buffoon.

Scotland always play their best rugby when they have the right blend in the backrow, they also play their best rugby when the play an up-tempo gameplan and for that you need the right backrow.  Last month I did a handy little table for the FB to use and I shall reproduce it here:

	1st Choice	2nd Choice	3rd Choice	4th Choice
Blindside	Brown	Strokosch	Harley	Low
Openside	Rennie	Barclay	Grant	Fusaro
No 8	Beattie	Denton	Hogg	Wilson

Notice where 66% of our starting backrow for the Italy game are?  He'll probably start with an unchanged backrow too.

He criminally dropped Kelly Brown and his ego will not admit he was wrong, he wont admit he was wrong over not selecting Rennie and Barclay in the squad and as a consequence we go into the French match with our 4th best openside - EVEN THOUGH ALL FOUR ARE BLOODY FIT.

Nobody in the press has ever called him to account for this - I refuse to use an Emperor's new clothes analogy as the thought of the FB in the nude is giving me the heebie-jeebies, but it's along those lines.  None of our esteemed hacks really concern themselves with interrogating him.  With the exception of Tom English an Irishman none of them were prepared to say a bad word about the FB until after the English game, then a couple managed the odd cross word - but he remains relatively untouched.

Not that it would bother him - giant egos tend not to notice these things.