A NATURALLY cautious man, Vern Cotter was eager to emphasise, when announcing his Scotland squad for the Six Nations last week, that progress cannot simply be taken for granted. We may have seen his team make a significant improvement over the course of the year, he stressed, from the Championship to the World Cup warm-up matches to the World Cup itself, but that improvement will not just carry on automatically. There are no guarantees; no magic wand; no certainties.

And yet, with those caveats firmly in place, there was no disguising Cotter’s conviction that his players are on the right track. They remain inexperienced at the highest level, and key players such as Finn Russell and Jonny Gray are still growing into their roles. Nonetheless, there is a realistic self-belief within the group, based on a keen awareness of where they have been falling short, and what they need to do to avoid repeating the mistakes of last year’s tournament, when they lost all five of their matches.

Given that record, even a single victory this time round would represent progress of a sort, but Cotter is aiming for a more accelerated improvement. He has some individual players with flair and unpredictability and a cutting edge, but he believes the keys to maintaining the improvement across the board will be less spectacular virtues such as humility and perseverance.

“There is no magic wand,” he said after naming the squad of 35 that meets up at St Andrews today for the first training camp of the year. “It comes from hard work, determination and trying to be accurate and as smart as we can. There’s no guarantee we’re going to come and win all our games, but we know that we’ll keep getting our head down, work hard and won’t make excuses. This group has got those traditional traits; those good Scottish traits. They’ve got big hearts. They’ve just got to be a little bit more accurate, grow our game and be comfortable with it.”

In addition to the bulk of his World Cup squad, Cotter has opted for tried-and-tested players such as Chris Fusaro and John Barclay who just missed out on selection for that tournament, and also named two uncapped props, Rory Sutherland and Zander Fagerson. Sutherland was actually called into the World Cup squad as a precaution the day before the quarter-final against Australia, so has been on the coach’s radar for some time, while Fagerson is maturing into an international-class tighthead.

“Taking into consideration the performances in the World Cup was, of course, important,” Cotter continued.

“And then taking the performances recently. Someone like Chris Fusaro is really coming through and playing well. He offers a substitute for John Hardie if we need one. With John Barclay, you can see the playmaker and decision-maker and the accuracy he’s bringing in his game as well. That’s something that we like to see.”

Hardie, the Edinburgh openside flanker, remains one of the first names on Cotter’s teamsheet – perhaps only behind Greig Laidlaw, whose retention of the captaincy was never in doubt after the World Cup. The coach also appears sure of his selections in the front row, at No 8, and at full-back – although he made a point of suggesting that Duncan Weir could rival Russell for the No 10 jersey rather than being seen merely as a stand-in for his Glasgow colleague.

“Greig had a good World Cup and I saw him grow as a leader, and in his combination with Finn and/or Dunky Weir,” Cotter said when asked about the nucleus of his squad. “You’re keeping your hooker, you’re keeping your No 8, you’re keeping your half-back, you’re keeping your full-back, which is your axis, the backbone of your team. Other players are coming in on form.

“You only need to see the game against Australia to see his [Laidlaw’s] leadership. The way he directed the game was very good. Finn and Dunky don’t have huge amounts of experience. But they’re starting to learn how to control games. I enjoy seeing those players get up and take responsibility. That’s what we need.

“Stuart Hogg is coming on, Grant Gilchrist, Jonny Gray up front is starting to get used to these games where the minor thing counts, against you and for you. Those are the type of things we’re developing within the group, and it’s a long-term thing. It’s a matter of keeping an open mind, and the knocks and bumps and bruises we get along the way, we make use of them. It’s not always going to be easy.”

Of course it is not, and Scotland could hardly have expected a more demanding first game than against an England team under their new coach, Eddie Jones. But they will be buoyed by the knowledge that they performed far better at the World Cup than the hosts did, and they will be determined, too, to regain the standard they displayed in their best moments against the Wallabies in the quarter-final. The last-gasp defeat in that game, when they were leading with minutes to go only for the South African referee Craig Joubert to award a penalty against them, still hurts Cotter. But, rather than continue to focus on the error, he will urge his players to concentrate on, and learn from, their own mistakes. I was bitterly disappointed for the players after that game,” he said of Scotland’s 35-34 defeat. “They’d put a huge effort in and there was a decision that didn’t go our way.

“Within that, internally, we know there are things we’d like to improve on. We’d like to become better than we are. That’s just the nature of the competitor within, and the group we’ve got – our desire to go forward.

“I’ve spoken to him,” he added when asked about Joubert, who compounded his apparent felony by running off the pitch at the end of the game. “I didn’t go to South Africa.

“Craig Joubert will be back on the field – he’s been refereeing and I think he’s touch judge for the game against Ireland. We’ll get to meet him again. They were very open and transparent about the whole thing. We all make mistakes. We’ll leave it at that.”

Scotland squad. Forwards: Hookers: R Ford (Edinburgh), P MacArthur (Glasgow), S McInally ( Edinburgh). Props: A Dickinson (Edinburgh), Z Fagerson (Glasgow), M Low (Exeter), WP Nel (Edinburgh), G Reid (Glasgow), R Sutherland (Edinburgh). Locks: J Gray (Glasgow), R Gray (Castres), T Swinson (Glasgow), B Toolis (Edinburgh). Back row: A Ashe (Glasgow), J Barclay (Scarlets), B Cowan (London Irish), D Denton (Bath), C Fusaro (Glasgow), J Hardie (Edinburgh), J Strauss (Glasgow).

Backs: Scrum-halves: S Hidalgo-Clyne (Edinburgh), G Laidlaw (Gloucester, captain). Stand-offs: F Russell, D Weir (both Glasgow). Centres: M Bennett, A Dunbar, P Horne (all Glasgow), M Scott (Edinburgh), D Taylor (Saracens). Wings: S Lamont (Glasgow), S Maitland (London Irish), T Seymour (Glasgow), T Visser (Harlequins). Full-backs: S Hogg (Glasgow), R Jackson (Wasps).

Training with the squad: G Gilchrist (lock, Edinburgh), H Pyrgos (scrum-half, Glasgow).