Chris Rattue: Scottish debacle could be Deans' death knell

Sack Robbie "Dingo" Deans.

Those are the painful words I never thought would find their way into this column.

That is until, da da, da, da, da, da, da, da (to the theme music for Jaws) along came - no, it can't be true - SCOTLAND!

Wallaby coach Deans has been left with mighty teethmarks in the reputation thanks to these shock Scottish monsters who live deep down the rugby rankings.

Here's a quick test. Name someone in the Scotland rugby side.

There you go.

There are many things you can get away with in rugby but not losing to Scotland.

ARU boss John O'Neill has loudly backed Deans but in private Australia's rugby Napoleon should at least consider sending Deans packing. If he doesn't, there might be a few Aussie powerbrokers thinking about sending O'Neill to his own Elba.

Until the Murrayfield defeat, Deans deserved a very cautious pass mark after two years in charge of the Wallabies. Now he has hurtled into the failure zone.

Not only are Scotland Scotland, but they're coached by the English flop Andy Robinson. That's a recipe for disaster, a Scottish disaster that is.

Deans was supposed to raise the bar, not drop it into a big vat of porridge.

It's not entirely his fault by a long way, because some of Dingo's Drongos are so bad they'd have trouble getting into the Blues. The Aussie player stocks have been left to rot by their own hand. But losing to Scotland?

The only reason Scotland are ranked ninth in the world is because all the teams below that have to survive on scraps. These Wallabies should still be much better than that.

Deans is joined at O'Neill's hip, the way the All Black and England rugby coaches are to their overlords. Here's the big problem for O'Neill then. As bad as things have got, they could get a lot worse if the win-loss ratio keeps heading this way.

Australians don't dwell too much on losers, especially when they play a niche upper-class game where blokes spend 80 minutes falling on top of each other and you only get to see the ball when it is being hoofed to the heavens or into the carpark.

The Aussies are quitting rugby in droves, according to their union's latest survey, which revealed crowd and television numbers are crashing.

Having a charisma-challenged foreign leader in charge of a bunch of gutless wonders is the worst possible formula against vibrant rival codes.

League is in revival mode, Aussie Rules will always be a religion in many parts, and soccer is gearing up for the Socceroos' World Cup campaign next year and an audacious bid to stage the world tournament.

The Australian rugby team has lost its mojo, and I suspect that defeat after defeat against the All Blacks is the major reason for that. The Aussie swagger has turned into a stagger.

Having failed to replace the small but exceptional bunch of rugby geniuses who kept Aussie rugby afloat and even ahead of the flotilla, they are now down to the flotsam and jetsam.

The only card left to play is one of national pride, and this is the one card that Kiwi Deans - despite his brave efforts to mumble Advance Australia Fair - cannot play with conviction.

His other big problem is that the supposed jewel in the Aussie crown, Matt Giteau, is not responding to Deans' ways and the coach has to cop a large portion of the blame for that.

Considering his ability and importance to the Wobblies, Giteau has been the biggest flop in international rugby this year. (Giteau's nomination as a finalist for the IRB's player of the year is the craziest award decision since Ellen Burstyn got an Emmy nomination for a 14-second role in a mini-series.)

Australia might go belly up against Warren Gatland's Wales and it could mean the game is also up for Deans.

Aussie rugby is run by a small huddle involving O'Neill and anyone who agrees with him, but he might find a few feisty Deans naysayers in the ranks, especially if there is a capitulation in Cardiff.

A remedy: well, the Ockers would bring back a much respected figure like Rod Macqueen as a World Cup manager, hoist one of their own to the top, and pull the patriotic heartstrings for all they are worth.

Because foreign coaches just don't seem to work with national rugby teams, and Deans looks set to follow the Welsh failures Graham Henry and Steve Hansen down the gurgler.

Despite the lack of class Australian players, there will be claims that another coach could do better. And frankly, after the Scotland defeat, anyone making the claim deserves to be heard.

There will be Kiwis chortling away at Deans' and Australia's demise, but don't laugh too loud. If Australian rugby collapses - and it is in danger of that - it will be a disaster for the game here.

I'm a Deans supporter from way back, or more precisely, a supporter of the former Crusaders maestro's right to have been given the All Black job after Henry's mob made an absolute hash of the last World Cup.

But losing to Scotland. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. The Aussies can manage that by themselves.

*What a noble lot the All Blacks are.

"I can think of an occasion not that long ago when we could have bitched and moaned a bit. It just happens in sport. That's the way it is," reckoned assistant coach Steve Hansen, in reply to a question which had nothing to do with whatever happened to the All Blacks not so long ago.

Actually, the All Blacks do a sneaky bitch and moan about so much that it's hard to know which incident he's talking about.

Just another example of their blatant passive-aggressive manipulation of the media.

*Paddy O'Brien was in a very odd mood last week.

No employee deserved the unjustified public serve that the Aussie ref Stuart Dickinson got from IRB's head whistler over the scrum fiasco during the All Black-Italy test and O'Brien was rightly ordered to apologise to the Ocker.

O'Brien seemed at pains to humiliate Dickinson, which was weird. We all have a right to expect better than that.

Anyone who goes over the tape will see that there are a lot of confusing grey areas in the mess, and faults on both sides.

O'Brien's assertion that Dickinson got it totally wrong by repeatedly penalising the All Blacks is highly disputable.

Spies have told me over the years that O'Brien is no great mate of All Black coach Graham Henry, but maybe O'Brien was overcome with a sudden urge to make a grand gesture in favour of his countrymen. Whether that was the case or not, the problem is that this is what it will have looked like to the outside world.

The All Blacks lapped it up, of course. But finding out that our big, brave front rowers have to hide behind the IRB's skirts was downright embarrassing.

*Can we call Nick Willis an Olympic silver medallist yet or is he still a man in bronze? The IOC could do with a drop of Usain Bolt speed when it comes to sorting out its drug messes. Let's jump the gun and give a hearty congratulations to Willis. A silver medal in the Olympic 1500 metres is a magnificent achievement.

*What a thrill, the return of Shane Bond to cricket's test arena. Our national cricket selector, captain, coach, manager, teaboy, psychiatrist, media manager, baggage man and scorer Daniel Vettori has sure struck it lucky if Bondy is back to his high-speed best. Let's hope Vettori doesn't have to do a turn as the team medic and physio to keep Bond in the game. Can't wait to see Bond steaming in towards the Pakistani batsmen in Dunedin.