Whitewash decider may be make-or-break time for Williams

When Ian McGeechan got behind the microphone in the Murrayfield interview room on 29 March 2003, he was mulling over what had swiftly become a time of high achievement for Scottish rugby. Not that McGeechan, nor anyone else in attendance, realised as much at the time.

If memory serves correctly, there was no Leonard Sachs figure banging a gavel and running through a stream of superlatives in the style of The Good Old Days, but when Ian McGeechan got behind the microphone in the Murrayfield interview room on 29 March 2003, he was mulling over what had swiftly become a time of high achievement for Scottish rugby. Not that McGeechan, nor anyone else in attendance, realised as much at the time.

Scotland had just beaten Italy 33-25 to finish fourth in the Six Nations' Championship, for the second successive season. "We've got better in a lot of things we've done," McGeechan reflected, "but we're fourth again - and it's top-three finishes that you're after." Or top-five finishes, as now happens to be the case for the thistle-crestfallen Scots.

One year and 11 months later, Scotland have yet to register another Six Nations victory. Since McGeechan moved upstairs at Murrayfield to assume the director of rugby role with the Scottish Rugby Union, the Caledonian record is played seven, lost seven under Matt Williams - a successor who has enjoyed precious little success as national head coach.

It was some 15 months ago, in the wake of the World Cup, that Williams took over as McGeechan's replacement, preaching a blend of bleak realism and rousing patriotism. "Miracles don't occur in St John's Gospel and they won't occur in the Scottish team," he said. At the same time, the native Sydneysider had the legend Dun Alba - Gaelic for "Fortress Scotland" - inscribed in the home dressing- room at Murrayfield. The ramparts have yet to materialise. Scotland's would-be fort- ress has become more of a bouncy castle.

Williams has not yet presided over a Scotland victory at Murrayfield. The Australian's two successes thus far have been against a weak Samoa side in Wellington last summer, 38-3, and a 100-8 non-contest against Japan in Perth. The last home win at the home of Scottish rugby dates back to August 2003, a 47-15 victory against Italy in a World Cup warm-up game.

John Kirwan and his Azzurri are back at Murrayfield on Saturday, and if there is pressure on the old All Black wing to put a win on the Championship board, the same surely applies to Williams. After opening their 2005 Six Nations campaign with an honourable defeat in Paris, Scotland's capitulation in their 40-13 defeat against Ireland in Edinburgh eight days ago was a big step back towards the shambolic 45-10 Murrayfield loss to the Springboks at the end of the autumn international series.

It is likely to be not just a wooden-spoon decider but also a whitewash clincher, and in all probability a make-or-break afternoon for Williams too. The Murrayfield natives are getting more than a little restless, although Scotland's coach has attempted to brush off the notion that he might just be 80 minutes away from the sack.

"I'm very relaxed with where we are," Williams insisted. "I don't own Scottish rugby. If other people want to do things, they can. But if you're asking me if I'm worried about it, if I'm worried about my team, I'm not.

"When I came in, I said it would take 12 to 18 months to get thing right, and that in that time there would be some good performances. We had a good performance against France and a bad performance against Ireland. And that's where we are - very inconsistent.

"As I said to the players and to the media when the battles were going on in Scottish rugby, I came here for the long haul. I came here for the four years. I know it's going to be tough. I know there are going to be days that are really dark. But I'm going to see it through. Full stop. End of story."

Speaking after the defeat by Ireland, in the same Murrayfield interview room where McGeechan had lamented the fourth-placed finish in the 2003 Championship, Williams dismissed the suggestion that Scotland were at the bottom of their cycle. On Monday, however, the Scots dropped to 10th place in the Inter-national Rugby Board's world rankings, below Fiji. And defeat against Italy would leave them three-fifths of the way towards a second successive whitewash - a nadir they have not hit since the dark days of 1952, 1953 and 1954, when they endured three in a row.

"We have three games left in the Championship and we cannot fear them," Scotland's full-back Chris Paterson said, addressing the prospect of successive home games against Italy and Wales, followed by a trip to face England at Twickenham. "We have to look forward to them, because we have nothing to lose whatsoever. I think the guys who came off the park after the Ireland match will be desperate for another chance to prove they can put things right."

And to make sure, Paterson might have added, that Scotland's coach is not living on 80 minutes that could possibly be borrowed.