LONG READ Johnnie Beattie: 'The Calcutta Cup showdown will decide Gregor Townsend's future, or whether it's time for Franco Smith'

Dean Ryan stood in front of his flipchart, us forwards sitting in Scotland team room days out from a Calcutta Cup match we longed to win. We all knew the history. No Scottish side had won at Twickenham since 1983, when my own dad was part of the team. Dean has his detractors but when he took on the Scotland forwards job some 13 years ago, it was hard to argue with his logic. “Some big Englishmen are coming here to hit you with a stick,” he said. “Now what are you going to do about it?” He turned over the page. On it, he’d written five points in big, bold letters. Set-piece, kick-chase, collision dominance, defence and discipline. Nail those areas, Dean told us, and you win Test matches. Scotland began their Six Nations on Saturday by failing comprehensively in every single one, and so backing Gregor Townsend into a corner.

When Gregor announced his team to lay siege to Rome, most of us were happy. I certainly was. Here was a side chosen on form, which respected the outstanding feats of the Glasgow Warriors, and seemed well placed to execute the game plan required to prevail in a historically treacherous venue.

Before the biblical downpour turned the game into a pretty slapstick affair, Scotland had two visits to the home 22 and bungled their lineout each time. Italy had two shots, fired them and came away with 12 points.

When I played in France, we’d call what happened to Scotland’s set-piece a faute grave – effectively, gross professional misconduct. At one stage, Scotland had thrown in to 10 lineouts and lost five. Some were miscommunications, some were overthrows and the ones that really drove me mad, were when there wasn’t even a jumper in the air and the ball was launched over everyone’s head. As a forward, after one of those, you pull people in and say, ‘boys, knock it on the head’. After five… embarrassing.

John Dalziel was the Lions forwards coach in the summer. Ewan Ashman and Grant Gilchrist train with each other every week for club and country. How people who have worked together for so long can perform so poorly in a set facet of the game blows my mind. They cannot be so chronically underprepared, which makes the execution criminal. In my experience, when things go that badly, you feel a sense of shame.

The pack hardly won a lineout, barely pressured the Italian throws and coughed up penalties at the scrum. You can discount the star names in the backline when the weather is that awful, your set-piece fails so spectacularly, and you cannot get access to the 22. You have no way of winning. You can forget the what-ifs about picking Duhan van der Merwe or Blair Kinghorn. Dangerous as they are, they would not have made a difference. That was the ballgame. And none of it was on Gregor.

He sat with his head in his hands watching his lineout collapse, his scrum disintegrate, and the pressure on him rise to brutal levels.

I’ve often been an advocate of Gregor’s and I think some of the rugby Scotland have produced on his watch has been fabulous, but I wonder how much more he can get out of these players.

Gregor has steered Scotland to seminal, but isolated, wins. He’s given us all cause for optimism and made us expect way more of Scotland teams than we did for much of my childhood, and indeed my own playing career. It’s catastrophic events like Rome on Saturday, Rome again two years ago, the November capitulations against New Zealand, in the first half, and Argentina, in the second, and the collective head loss in successive squeaky wins over Wales which make it so hard to have long-term faith in where this group is heading. A group, remember, we all recognise is Scotland’s best for close to 30 years. A group which had the most average caps of any XV last weekend. A group which now has the same number of Six Nations wins as Italy since the 2023 World Cup.

Scotland are capable of the miraculous and the absolutely, absurdly atrocious. How do they eradicate this Jekyll and Hyde stuff? I’ve often been an advocate of Gregor’s and I think some of the rugby Scotland have produced on his watch has been fabulous, but I wonder how much more he can get out of these players.

Scotland post a huge number of line breaks and tackle breaks, especially in the middle third of the field, and generate plenty of 22 entries. When the game slows up and power is required close to the opposition line, they lack the punch to turn territory into tries. Scottish rugby does not have the depth to rip things up or unearth two 150kg forwards. The playing personnel won’t change and nor will its deficiencies. Gregor – or whoever is in his chair – can only work with the tools he’s got. In other words, a new coach would have to tackle exactly the same problems. Maybe, after close to a decade, it’s time to find out if someone else can find the solutions.

It certainly feels like a critical mass of Scotland fans want change. They want Franco Smith. And if Scotland fail to beat England on Saturday, and fail to secure a top-three finish in this year’s championship, why wouldn’t you make that switch?

Now, Scotland would not have fared any better in Rome had Franco, instead of Gregor, been in the coaching box. Franco has no influence on lineout execution or scrum penalties. His Glasgow side has a massive contingent of Scotland internationals and naturally looks good swatting aside weaker opposition in the URC. But they also wrecked the Toulousain Galacticos in 40 amazing minutes and blew Saracens and Clermont off the field. No Scottish team has earned such a lofty seeding in the Champions Cup. The question is whether installing Franco would boost the mental capabilities, resilience and toughness of a player group which isn’t going to change. The evidence from Scotstoun is encouraging on this front.

The players will feel this narrative too. Some of the Glasgow boys might privately question whether they’d have ground that Italy game out with Franco in charge. Or why the things which work in the URC and Champions Cup don’t seem to translate into regular successes at international level. All those thoughts swim around your head in times like these.

If Scottish Rugby do terminate Gregor’s contract, it has to be Franco who steps up. There’s been talk of sending for Scott Robertson or Ronan O’Gara or another glamour name from further afield. Robertson has just been removed from his post for not being up to the job. O’Gara’s La Rochelle are in a grim spot and he’s suggested only a couple of the very plum Test gigs would rev his engine. These are not cookie-cutter appointments who would slot seamlessly in to the Scotland role.

The Red Bull link may not be a distraction to Gregor, but it is for everyone else. It’s just not a good look. Especially when you’re losing to Italy.

The only guy who knows the landscape, has the trust of 80% of the squad, and is already contracted to Scottish Rugby is Franco. He is there, ready and waiting, with a URC win on his CV. Much as Gregor was 10 years ago. It’s for the board to decide which man they want to back for Australia 2027.

The whole Red Bull arrangement has not helped Gregor’s image. It would be easier for everyone, and more palatable for Scotland fans, had he been in front of this from the off. Last week’s Telegraph report indicating he’ll be Newcastle’s director of rugby after the World Cup was strongly rebuffed but whatever he has or hasn’t signed, or whatever assurances he has or hasn’t given, the optics are inevitably stark: he looks like the man in waiting. The hullaballo of will-he-won’t-he has become a sideshow. It may not be a distraction to Gregor, but it is for everyone else. The punters who feel their figurehead is moonlighting or unfocused or disrespecting his position. It’s just not a good look. Especially when you’re losing to Italy.

Come Saturday afternoon, England will do what Dean Ryan asked us to all those years ago. They will kick accurately and often, bombard Scotland aerially and use their big athletes to compete. They’ll blitz the contact area, generate turnover ball and defensive chaos then play off that.

Gregor may not actually mind Steve Borthwick’s blueprint here. He will want possession and control of the ball and prefer England to kick it back to his team. In front of a Murrayfield crowd, there will be an emotional reaction too. Gregor’s Calcutta Cup record is incredible. Unthinkable, even, when he took over. It would be very Scottish if his men did the business.

This, though, is the biggest game of his coaching career. Yes, he’s won in France, in Cardiff, at Twickenham and claimed Scotland’s first professional club title. He’s done things we, as a rugby nation, have not done for decades or have never done. But this game will decide his future. It will define whether he makes it to the summer, never mind Australia in 18 months. Or whether it’s time for Franco Smith.

Big Englishmen are coming north on Saturday, hitting Scotland with sticks again. What can they, and their under-fire coach, do to stop them?