THE Scotland squad have been angered by some of the criticism levelled at them in the wake of last week’s 15-9 defeat by England, according to Vern Cotter. The coach again insisted yesterday that there was not much between the teams in the Calcutta Cup match, but also sought to downplay expectations for the rest of the tournament.
Cotter, whose team play Wales in Cardiff tomorrow in their second Six Nations Championship match of the campaign, suggested that any attempt to judge whether his team have improved on last year’s whitewash in the tournament should be left until the end of this year’s matches. And he added, perhaps with deliberate understatement, that the squad wanted to do better than on their last visit to the Welsh capital, when they lost 51-3.
“We know it’s a tough ask to go to Wales and win that game,” he said. “But within the team there is a real desire – and I think the players have said we’re fed up with bits and pieces that have been thrown at the team.
“We’re going to stick tight and work our way through this. It’s not going to be easy - the Six Nations is not an easy competition, we know that. We’ve got to take away the things that make it harder for us – and instead make it harder for the opposition.”
Cotter denied he was trying to foster a backs-to-the-wall mentality within his squad, but there is little doubt that the coach himself feels pressure after six consecutive losses in the Six Nations. Added to the two at the end of the 2014 campaign when Scott Johnson was temporarily in charge, Scotland have now lost their last eight Six Nations games - a record run of reverses.
“We came last last year,” the coach continued. “Let’s not forget that. So we’re looking to improve on that – and let’s wait until the end of the competition to see if we have.
“There’s been a six-point loss against England at the start of the competition. We got out of shape a couple of times, and when we were out of shape they took advantage of it.
“That’s a fact. A fact you can’t change. You can’t make things up. I’m not going to sit here and try to whip up a story – that’s just the way it is.
“We lost by six points to England. We’re going to play in Wales, where two years ago it was a pretty difficult game, I think – we’d like to do better than that. And we want to keep improving.”
Wales have begun the tournament in good form, fighting back to claim an 18-18 draw in Ireland last Sunday, and they are expected to put up regular high balls in a bid to unsettle the Scots defence - a tactic used with some success by England. But Cotter takes comfort from the belief that his team might well have beaten the Welsh at Murrayfield last year but for the yellow card shown to Finn Russell for dangerous play, and remains convinced that the elimination of some fairly basic errors will take his team a lot closer to winning.
“It was a yellow card that tipped the game [in 2015]. Discipline-wise, we only gave away nine penalties last week; England gave away 12.
“I think there’s an understanding there that if we can stop making mistakes it helps. They’ll go to the air and try to make us repeat those mistakes. We’re aware of that: the players have been working hard in training to take balls that are put high up in the sky.
“There are no guarantees. But we’re trying to perform better with regard to that.”
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