IT often seems that the more meticulously coaches plan for a match, the more likely it is that something will happen to disrupt their preparations. Usually it is the opposition who throw a spanner in the works - that is their job, after all - but, as he looks ahead to this year’s RBS Six Nations Championship, Vern Cotter knows he has two new extraneous factors to deal with.
One is the introduction of bonus points, which could have a significant effect on tactics, especially late in the game. The other is World Rugby’s new tackle directive, which has so far produced more yellow cards - a trend which, if it continues, will see teams depleted more frequently than hitherto.
A few years ago, the Scotland team which struggled to score tries would have seen the bonus-point issue as a threat, one likely to benefit their more attack-minded opponents. Now, given the enhanced offensive threat of players such as Stuart Hogg, Tommy Seymour and Finn Russell, it is an opportunity.
It remains to be seen whether other teams also become more enterprising, leading to high-score shootouts, and Cotter does not pretend to know how this year’s tournament will differ from previous editions. But he is confident that, however things pan out, his squad has the armoury to deal with it.
“There’s belief, and all over there’s been an improvement, in attack and defence and in our ability to think on the paddock,” he says. “That comes through repeated training, experience, games and from honest reviews. You’ve got humble people, and if you do an honest review, you can try and move forward.
“We know where we are in the world rankings.” (Scotland are seventh, below England, Ireland and Wales but ahead of France and Italy). “We’d like to improve that, but everyone else would like to improve as well. We’ll get tested and that’s what we like.”
In addition to that collective test, starting when Ireland visit Murrayfield a fortnight today, every player will face an individual test: how to go into certain tackles now that referees have been told to clamp down on those perceived as dangerous or reckless. Cotter hopes the issue will settle down as players become accustomed to how that area of the game is being officiated, and he is sure that the referees who take charge of championship matches will be a little more self-possessed than some of their less-experienced counterparts in club games. Nonetheless, he plans to run some training drills in which the team are reduced to 14 men.
“I think it would be prudent to do that,” he said. “You need to have a contingency plan. We have contingencies, but if a back gets a red card do you take a forward off and bring a back on or do you play with eight forwards and six backs?
“So there are a few things, depending on who goes down and team requirements. I hope it doesn't happen, and I genuinely think there has been some good debate over this, and hopefully there will be some good decisions made. There are experienced referees in the Six Nations and some of the decisions we have seen that have been a bit harsh have been referees that haven’t had the experience.
“We definitely need to work on tackle technique, but there are reflexes as well. We saw a reflex from Stuart Hogg [for Glasgow against Munster] last weekend from a late step. A late step back on the inside, the reflex is to put your arm up. How do we train that? We’re going to have to make the players aware of it and try to coach those kind of things.
“There will be the odd incident that may go the TMO and be deemed a foul play so we’ll have to deal with it. Technically we’ll try and work, but there are reflex movements.”
Any number of individual problems will also arise over the course of the coming weeks, of course, and Cotter has already had to face one with the news on Friday that Willem Nel, his first-choice tighthead prop, will miss the tournament because of a neck injury. That leaves Zander Fagerson as the favourite to be named in the No 3 jersey when the team to play Ireland is announced next week.
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