No member of the Scotland coaching team has yet owned up to smashing the glass door of their booth in the BT Murrayfield stand during the 19-22 loss to Italy 11 days ago, but a conspiracy theorist might have been tempted to wonder if captain Greig Laidlaw was subtly fingering the culprit as he broke off from preparations for Saturday's Calcutta Cup clash with England.

Asked about head coach Vern Cotter's approach as training resumed this week, Laidlaw looked just a little ashen. "We have now seen both sides of Vern," said the scrum-half. "He's a hard man, and rightly so. He has high standards and we have certainly seen what he's all about, but that's good.

"We now know what's expected of us. He's a very clever coach. Some of the analysis we have done this week, he's done it in a very clever way.

"There has been a slight change in tack from him. His analysis has been about going back a bit further into previous tournaments. He's been on our case and he's certainly been on my case, that's for sure."

Cotter has mined Scotland's rugby history in an attempt to settle on a definitive style for the team. But he didn't need to go all that far back to find out what not to do against England. In the minds of many who were there, last year's 20-0 capitulation to a rather unimpressive England side at Murrayfield was one of the most feeble and spiritless performances Scotland had ever produced. And Laidlaw was not inclined to disagree.

It's all fuel for the fire, though. "That was personally one of my worst games for Scotland," he recalled. "To be honest, I don't think many of the boys played well that day, for whatever reason. It was a bad day all round.

"When you play England you want to do yourself proud. It's the oldest game in the world and you want to do the jersey proud. So we want to turn the result around if we can. We have to go in with the mindset to win the game.

"Any game is ideal to bounce back. The history is brilliant, of course, and it's great to be part of. Whoever we were playing next, it would be important to win the game, but it's got slightly more added spice because it's England down there.

Laidlaw, of course, is a son of Jedburgh, 10 miles from the English border, and like many from his corner of the world, that proximity has heightened rivalry rather than affection for our friends in the south. Less than two weeks ago, the annual handba' game was played through the streets of the town, and legend (admittedly almost certainly spurious) has it that the ball for the original game was the head of a captured English soldier.

Not that he has been regaling his team-mates in the Gloucester dressing room since he joined the Kingsholm club last summer. A few months ago, Laidlaw suggested that the move to England had sharpened his game, but it appears to have sharpened his understanding of English players as well. Just as Scotland's Lions players used to return from tour emboldened by the knowledge they were the equals of England's finest, time spent in the Aviva Premiership has convinced Laidlaw that the current Scotland side can go toe-to-toe at Twickers with Stuart Lancaster's lot.

Laidlaw said: "They [England] are good players and have a couple who give them that X factor. They have shown up well in the tournament so far. But we have good players also for Scotland and I truly believe we can match them and better them if we turn up and play to the best of our ability.

"To win in a Scotland jersey you need to play at your best and so far we haven't done that. There have been glimpses but we have just fallen short so we need an 80-minute performance on Saturday.

"I've always thought highly of [English players] but they're not invincible. That's definitely not the case."

There might be a few people left on planet earth who are unaware that the Scots have not won at Twickenham since 1983, but Laidlaw was never in much danger of being one of them. Admittedly, he was not even born when Scotland secured that last victory 32 years ago, but as his uncle Roy played - and scored a try - in the game it has always been part of his personal hinterland. But not a burden.

"I've talked to Roy about it in the past, but not specifically this week," he explained. It was a different group of players then and they have their bit of history.

"It's up to us now to make our own bit of history, to go down there and be strong and have the mentality that we can impose our game on them, not worry what's coming out of the other changing room."

He appreciates that England are the runaway favourites. But after the horrors of the last Six Nations season - which ended with a 51-3 humiliation by Wales - he takes comfort from the fact that things have been rather closer this year as they have accumulated a negative points difference of only 13 points in their three defeats.

"We're not far away," he said. "I'm getting pretty sick of telling people that, I really am. It's up to us as players to step up, go again and put in that performance. We're all craving to get off the mark.

"We've got two massive games now and if we can get something out of these games we'll be in a much better position than we are at the minute."