Jim Telfer was never afraid to tell it like it is. He would have gone through the Scotland team that lost to South Africa like a knife through butter. A lack of cutting edge and too many mistakes against an under-cooked Springboks side cost them victory. He would have been furious.

As Scotland head coach for the 1984 Grand Slam and 1999 Five Nations plus forwards coach of the 1990 Grand slam winning side as well as the 1997 British and Irish Lions tour to South Africa reputations never mattered to him.

Whether you were ex-England and Lions captain Martin Johnson or former Scotland and Lions skipper Gavin Hastings he was on your back if he thought you were slacking or had let the team down.

Yet speak to any of his former players- even 1990 Grand Slam legend Derek White who incurred his wrath more than most- and you won’t hear a word against him.

Telfer’s hard task master approach came to mind this week after former England player Danny Care savaged his former head coach Eddie Jones in his new autobiography. I have never once heard of a player criticise Telfer for the way he acted when in charge of Scotland.

Care accused Jones, who coached England to three Six Nations titles and a Rugby World Cup final between 2016 and 2022, of overseeing a “toxic environment” and alleged he would “bully and berate staff.”

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He went further and wrote in his book, Everything Happens for a Reason : “It was like living in a dictatorship. Remember what it felt like when someone was being bullied at school and you were just glad it wasn’t you? That was the vibe.”

Jones, who is now in charge of Japan, said he hadn’t heard of Care’s allegations so could not comment when asked before his side lost to France at the weekend.

For all of Care’s criticism let’s not forget that Jones enjoyed great success with England with three Six Nations titles an impressive haul.

He won his first 17 games in charge but was sacked in December 2022 after only five victories from 12 matches in his final year. He ended with a 73% win percentage, better than 2003 Rugby World Cup-winning coach Sir Clive Woodward and better than present England coach Steve Borthwick whose team lost to Australia on Saturday.

Sir Clive, on hearing Care’s comments, claimed the Jones era had got out of hand, with players unable to say how they felt at the time and no senior figures at the RFU holding the head coach to account and that should never have been allowed to happen.

Would Telfer have to tone down his approach nowadays? Was he of his time? Yes on both counts but he was tough but fair. His straight-talking, serious demeanour rubbed some people up the wrong way but he always had the respect of his players. He always gave the best ones the toughest time as he knew he could destroy poorer players with fragile confidence with a few well chosen words. He was a great man manager.

Some of those coached by Telfer remember in his early days with the Scotland national side he would shoulder charge players in the dressing room to get them wound up before a match. That changed pretty quickly they tell me because he was running into big guys more physical than he was and it was starting to hurt. Not that he showed it.

There was an incident when they even tried to take his trousers down in the bus. Can you imagine that? One look from Telfer and they knew they had over-stepped the mark. The trousers stayed on. He never wanted to be one of the boys. He was aloof. The boss. There to be respected not loved.

Every Scotland and Lions player I have spoken to feels nothing but respect for Telfer. That a number of them still phone the 84-year-old at his home in Galashiels for a chat is testimony to that.

Talk to those who worked under him - Gavin Hastings among them- they talk affectionately of a man who made all of them better players. He never let up as he strived for perfection from each and every one of them.

The key to Telfer’s success was to realise when to lay off players before he broke them. If you listen to Care’s comments it suggests Jones pushed players too far and didn’t know when to stop.

What both Telfer and Jones have in common is on field success at the top level. That wasn’t the case for some coaches whose style didn’t go down well with the players. Richard Cockerill when he was in charge of Edinburgh had a confrontational coaching style. There was a players revolt against him and they didn’t take to his bull in a china shop approach.

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I had a bit of sympathy with Cockerill at the time as the Edinburgh squad needed a shake-up. He described them of being too soft and pushed them hard. The problem with the stick rather than carrot approach is that it works fine if you are winning. Edinburgh weren’t and the alienation between Cockerill and his players led to him leaving the club at the end of his contract in the summer of 2021.

Reading Care’s allegations aimed at Jones it was surprising to hear that he got away with such alleged bullying behaviour in the professional era. The players have a lot more power now than they did in Telfer’s day. It’s too much to say some are prima donnas but they are more ready to complain about coaches than they were in the amateur era or even in the early days of professionalism.

Some former Scotland coaches did use unusual ways to motivate and bond their players together that didn’t go down well. Prior to the 2015 Rugby World Cup Vern Cotter took his squad up the Pyrenees in the middle of the night and told them the only food they would eat was animals they caught and killed.

Battering rabbits to death and cooking them on a French mountainside didn’t go down well with everyone but nobody leaked the story at the time or officially complained to the SRU.

In fact the story never came out till over a year later when Jim Hamilton, who was among those up the Pyrenees but not picked by Cotter for the 2015 World Cup, mentioned it on a podcast. Cotter was a bit like Telfer. Hard but fair. Someone who was respected.

It is hard to believe any allegations of bullying ever being aimed at current Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend or the two pro coaches Franco Smith at Glasgow Warriors and Sean Everitt at Edinburgh.

All three use the carrot rather than the stick and besides, any rows Townsend has had with his Scotland players have leaked out straight away. There was his fall-out with Finn Russell that led to the suspension of the star fly-half. Then Townsend disciplined six players- including Russell and Stuart Hogg- who all went out drinking without permission after a 2022 Six Nations win over Italy. Smith and Everitt are both softly spoken individuals who will let rip when necessary but never go over the score.

The days of Jim Telfer may be long gone but let’s hope present day coaches haven’t gone too much the other way and are scared to give their players a rollocking when they under-perform like Scotland did against South Africa on Sunday. After all, getting criticised by Telfer never did legends of the game such as Gavin Hastings any harm.