Vern Cotter: Scotland coach departs ‘heroically deadpan, a tour-de-force of sternness’

If you could have been at the press conference, it was priceless. There we were, trying to press Cotter’s buttons, trying to bring him to a profound place where he would tear-up a little as he recounted his odyssey in Scotland. He gave a little, but not a lot. For the most part he was heroically deadpan, a tour-de-force of sternness.

He wanted to keep it real, he wanted to talk about the Test against Italy, how it wasn’t perfect, but how he admired his players’ maturity in working through the tough spots and getting the result they needed. He was asked about legacy, but he wasn’t going there. At a guess, he’d have thought it cringe-making to talk about himself in this scenario.

Cotter’s great strength as a rugby coach is in building a culture, not in talking about building a culture. He does it and doesn’t see the point in revelling in it. He’s a rugby man, not a show man. Scotland’s loss is Montpellier’s gain.

Joe Schmidt is a go-to man for insight on Cotter. The Ireland coach, and fellow Kiwi, is a great mate of Cotter’s. Theirs is a friendship forged in the French championship at Clermont, where they worked and worked and worked and finally succeeded and won the league title for the first time in the club’s history.