"This must be a new low for Scotland, again you have too many foreigners in your teams who have just finished the AB rugby and others who were not quite good enough for AB rugby. Their only passion is not because their little toe has a bit if Scottish blood in it, but how much passion they can squeeze from the bank of Scotland. Till you Scots build from the ground up at home and bring in international quality players not good provincial players in, methinks even the likes of Romania, America and Canada will beat you. I’m writing this on behalf of my wife whose ancestors are Scottish!"- Robert Hughes, Rotorua, NZ

"Most Scottish supporters are still contemplating the defeat of Scotland in Italy, but the dearth of strength in depth is more cruelly indicated by the walloping their Edinburgh side received tonight at the hands at one of the Welsh provisional sides - also depleted by international losses - who ended the game having made numerous substitutions. Scottish backs are becoming synonymous with cart horses. The fragility of Scottish rugby talent will not be reversed very easily and coach Williams’ job is beginning to look very tough indeed."- Aubrey Wilson

"Sad, sad, sad day for Scottish rugby. Gavin Hastings, John Jeffries, etc, etc. What must the Scottish greats be thinking now?"- James King, UK

"Could someone please explain to me, an ex-pat living in South Africa where Matt Williams is coming from with his positive points he seems to see in every successive defeat?

"Having been privileged to watch Scotland last year at both Durban and Johannesburg, you will recall how close we were to beating the Boks in Durban! I can tell you that I also saw positives in both those defeats but cannot see any similarity between being one dropped ball away from beating South Africa and the recent showings against both Wales and Italy.

"Also, I cannot see any logic in Mr Williams’ rumoured policy of not picking any Scot not playing in Scotland, wake up! Mr Williams if you were an up and coming Scottish rugby player you would also be looking South, learn from the lesson of our soccer counterparts. Does Mr Williams have a problem with our boys playing at the highest standard or is it perhaps too much trouble to get down to such far away places as Newcastle, Leeds etc?

"Remember, there are States in OZ bigger than the UK and how would Mr Williams ever contemplate picking a Springbok squad considering the sheer distance between Jo’burg and Cape Town?"- Jeff Newman, Boksburg, SA (still a passionate Scot!)

"When Scotland beat South Africa at Murrayfield in 2002 we all hoped it would be the start of great things to come. I was there that day when they beat the once-mighty Boks, and a year later I was in Australia as we barely managed to beat Fiji to make the World Cup play-offs. Yes, we pushed Australia hard in the quarter-finals, but the Wallabies struggled at the World Cup, finally coming good in the semi-finals. I shudder to think that Ireland and France will do to us."- Jimmy Curter, Scotland

"Matt Williams can see ’positives’ in Scotland’s performance. Perhaps this is why he is our highly-paid national coach, with that wonderful antipodean insight that is beyond us mere mortals.

"Personally, the only positive I could see was that we positively failed in every aspect of the game. Unfortunately my positives are really negatives but I will list them anyway Matt Williams is not a national coach his selection is poor. IE. his retention of Brendan Laney. [The mind fairly boggles at the prospect of Laney v O’Driscoll.] His tactical planning is obscure to the point that defies interpretation. Surely it wasn’t just kick the ball down field and hope it doesn’t come back for a while there must be a sub plot of which we are blissfully unaware?

"His choice of assistant coaches is basically flawed, Todd Blackadder is I believe a decent man but to expect him to do a job at international level is optimistic to say the least. It could only happen here. Steve Andersen’s appointment after his controversial spell at Glasgow beggars belief. MW should remember that a man is judged by the company he keeps. His constant reiteration that we should not expect to much until at least 2006! And judge him then sounds increasingly like a very good way of staying employed for that period. I thought that the employer set the target not the employee. If his constant stating that we are so far behind is true this is a shocking indictment of his boss ’Geech’. Someone or both have to go. His rugby-speak, ’we lacked go-forward’ was not only stunningly perceptive but very apt as it put me in mind of the old joke about the Italian tank.

"Chris Paterson is not a No.10, but remains one of our best players and should be returned to wing or fullback before his self-confidence goes completely. Gordon Ross is our only experienced No.10 and should be reinstated immediately.

"We should go on bended knee to Dean Richards and ask him to come and teach our forwards the basics in skills and attitude His mother is Scottish and she might have a word."- John Black

"Williams’s youth policy and brave approach ought to be commended. He is doing what Sir Clive Woodward tried when he took over in 1997. Hell, SCW even believed in Mike Catt when nobody else did, although it remains to be seen if Brendan Laney will come good like ’Catty did’.

"I like the look of Chris Cusiter and Simon Taylor is world-class, a definite Lion [again] next year. Chris Paterson is a star, but should not be captain. Then again, we shouldn’t be losing to Italy either and we just did."- Malcolm Wallace

"I write with graat concern for the immediate and medium-term future of Scottish rugby. I recently argued that Matt Williams had to be given time to develop a young side, and I still believe this to be the case, but I have to disagree with a few of his selections; Ali Hogg will be a great player but he is not ready for international rugby yet, Hinshelwood is a great kicker but he has yet to show that he can do anything else. How I wish we could wind the clock back three years and have an in-form Glenn Metcalfe, as Hinshelwood simply isn’t interested in having a go from the back, even Girvan Dempsey is more exciting!! The bald eagle on the wing is not of international class, I would bring in the brilliant Rory Kerr of Glasgow, who is currently on fire and has the pace and ability to beat anyone, and is also defensively superior to Mr. Webster.

"And finally, the continued selection of ’Chainsaw’ at second-five beggars belief. He is slow, his kicking is awful, he appears indecisive and for the man they call ’60-40’ in NZ in reference to his shocker to brilliant ratio, he plays more like 100-0! Let’s remember that he is there not because he is a consistently good player but because he is known to have moments of genious. Let us also note that moments of genius, although apparantly frequent for Edinburgh of late, have been non-existent playing in the blue jersey for the last two years. The word from inside the Scotland camp is that he talks a lot of p#*h to Matt Willams and he loves it, and will not drop Laney ever. He must get rid of him for good and bring Henderson in to 12, who will take the ball over the gain line with some direct running and give us that ’go-forward’ that he always talks about. Also, the selection of Henderson would be consistent with his youth policy, although Henderson (24) has 17 caps and is a very experienced player.

"We wait in hope for a more perspicacios team selection from Mr Williams next week. Let’s get behind ours boys and come out of this Six Nations with some pride. Remember, we were having a shocking tournament in 2000 and then we managed to beat the English!"- Fraser Sinclair, Glasgow

"Robert Hughes was spot-on! How can Scotland continue to play wanna-be Scots? Passion is the name of international rugby when things start to go wrong pride kicks into gear and money is certainly not the motive to win. The IRB should now make it clear that wanna-bes should stay where they are. Estonia will never go down this road, home-grown can be equal to glory hunters any day."- John Slade, President, Estonia Rugby

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