MAYBE one of these days, Hugo Southwell will crop up as an answer to one of Richard Osman’s teasers on Pointless, given the diversity of the questions.
Amongst all the names and legends of Scottish rugby, not too many can lay claim to having played in back-to-back Calcutta Cup wins at Murrayfield over the Auld Enemy. Throw in to the mix that in three starts at home against England, the former Wasps and Scotland full-back was never on the losing side, and “Shug” as he is known within the rugby fraternity, belongs to an exclusive club.
“It stacks up pretty well compared to most people,” laughs Southwell, who made 59 appearances for Scotland.
On Saturday, the Scots again go up against the tournament favourites, England, in Edinburgh. Outsiders, underdogs, call them what you will, not many will tip Gregor Townsend’s men to upset the Eddie Jones circus when it rumbles in to the capital.
But both history and Shug would tell you that occasionally, we do get a celebratory tale of the unexpected. And if Scotland are to triumph, their tactics might not be too far removed from what helped Scotland earn wins in 2006 and again two years later.
“I heard this stat and didn’t believe it and even went and looked it up,” admits Southwell, who will be employed at the game for his expert opinion. “Scotland haven’t scored a try in a Calcutta Cup match at Murrayfield since 2004. That is unbelievable, that in 14 years, we haven’t crossed the English line once for a score. I’d have lost money on that.
“The last try scored was in the 58th minute of the game in 2004 – when England were the newly-crowned world champions – by Simon Danielli.
“The current Scotland side doesn’t have an issue scoring tries. We have the ability to score from anywhere on the field. So that is an unwanted record that could – and probably should – be brought to an end.
“But ultimately, if you win, no-one really cares about how many tries you score in the process. If we were to claim a win, no-one would care as long as we were one point ahead at the end.”
Reflecting on how he and Scotland claimed those wins in the mid-noughties, he continued: “England were a good side then, a great side in fact. It is more incredible given some of the names and players we were up against. In 2006 for instance, that was still a sizeable part of the England World Cup team from ’03, and in 2008, that England team had been in the World Cup final just a few months before.
“We were playing against seasoned internationals, players who had been around for a long time and had a serious amount of experience; Dallaglio, Moody, Wilkinson, Tindall, Vickery, Shaw. These guys had hundreds of caps and Tests between them.
“When you look through those Scotland teams, it would surprise some people with the names that jump out – Marcus Di Rollo, Graeme Morrison, Andy Henderson, Nikki Walker, Bruce Douglas, Scott MacLeod. All really good players, but how many would have had those guys down to be in a winning team against England?
“Thinking back, Simon Webster, who was probably best known as a winger with Edinburgh, started at 13 in 2008 because Frank Hadden saw an opportunity to play him there, believing he offered up a potential threat if he got the ball sooner, and stuck him at centre. It wasn’t exactly conventional thinking, and as it transpired, there wasn’t lots of running rugby. But it worked and helped us get a result, and a lot of that credit should go to Hadden.
“It shows just how well we did as a team in those games. Yes, there were individuals – especially the kickers – who got the headlines. But they really were team performances and it shows the value of getting it right as a collective,” said Southwell who works for an advertising agency and in corporate hospitality at Wasps. “To earn those wins, a decade ago, we got two things absolutely bang on: one was our defence, and the second was the accuracy of our kickers. We relied on Chris Paterson and Dan Parks, who were absolutely metronomic – just as Greig Laidlaw was against France.
“It wasn’t all about defence. Ally Hogg nearly scored a try in the corner. But that 2006 game, and the win, as the score [18-12] would suggest, was a real game of attrition, and our defence was just incredible. I think we made something like 200 tackles. It was much the same in 2008 and 2010.
“What is often missed though, is that in putting in those tackles, and stopping what was a very abrasive England pack, Scotland’s discipline was immense. You know the risk you run in contact areas, if you are deemed to have killed the ball, or strayed offside, and what the consequences might be if you give the likes of Jonny Wilkinson too many kicks at goal. But we got that spot on as well.
“Any possibility of a win against England this time is going to be built on our defence. That will keep us in the game and keep it close.”
The victory over France last Sunday put Scotland’s Six Nations back on track. But for Southwell, Scottish rugby has to be more than just getting one over on the red rose.
“There is still a large proportion of the fan base in Scotland who would accept anything if it resulted in a Scotland win, especially in the game against England, if we were in the middle of a poor run of results. But I think times have moved on where even the most ardent supporters are not entirely happy with just what we do against England. They expect for Scotland to be competing, and to be in the top half of the table, certainly not playing the Italians every year to decide who gets the Wooden Spoon.
“The first game, against Wales, that wasn’t the Scotland team we’ve come to expect or the level of performance we’ve become used to since the last World Cup. Even Gregor Townsend didn’t know where that came from.
“We improved against France, and, showed a lot of character, adapting to the situation – both in terms of the coaches and the players – to get the job done and get the win. It was a great performance over 80 minutes.
“But we don’t want to be giving it all the hype and believing we’ll now beat England. On current form, England are the team to beat, and the team that is on their game, match after match. However, we all know, and the history is there, that strange things, weird results, unexpected results, can happen in this fixture. This will be a seriously hard-fought contest that could come down to a score between the teams, hopefully in our favour.”
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