Defence coach Matt Taylor has admitted that Scotland let people down when they were ripped apart at Twickenham last year, but he believes it will be a very different story when the Auld Enemy visit BT Murrayfield on Saturday.
As the one member of the current coaching staff who was involved as seven tries and an all-time record 61 points were conceded in international rugby’s oldest fixture, Taylor was embarrassed by the way his defensive systems fell apart.
“It certainly wasn’t my highest point. When it is your profession and your full-time job and you concede so many points it is not a great feeling,” he said.
“We have all been in situation in jobs when you have a bad day. That was certainly one of those. You are disappointed and you feel you have let people down.”
However he believes the memory of that should not influence proceedings this time around.
“The important thing is every game is different in itself and it’s a new game every time you step onto the field. We know it will be a big challenge but Murrayfield has been a special place to play for the players and everyone involved in recent years. I’m certainly looking to the crowd getting behind us.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here