We must even up the stats, says Scotland captain

Senior Sports Writer

Thursday 7 March 2013

Rearguard action may have set up Scotland's first back-to-back RBS 6 Nations wins in 12 years but their captain does not believe they can rely on it in their bid to make history by winning a third match in succession.

Kelly Brown appreciates the upbeat feeling around Scotland's campaign but knows there is still much work to be done. Picture: Craig Watson/SNS

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Kevin Ferrie

The last time Scotland won two successive Six Nations matches was in the so-called "foot and mouth" fixture against Ireland in 2001, which was effectively a one-off match, the competition having been postponed for six months following the outbreak of the epidemic.

Kelly Brown expressed discomfort at his own role in the statistic, having been a regular squad member for more than half that time. However, he also knows there is nothing to gain from dwelling on past failings. "As a player that's played in it [the Six Nations] for quite a few years I'm aware that it's poor, but all that is in the past and we need to look forward," he said yesterday. "I think it's great that the fans are feeling upbeat because they've been starved of success for a long time but all we can do is focus on the mood in the squad. While I would say it's upbeat, we also realise that the last two matches have been far from perfect and I would say we're a very honest bunch and we know we need to improve if we want to keep on winning."It's a new squad, it's a new team and, yes, we're very happy to win our last two matches, but if we don't go out and win on Saturday, then those two wins essentially count for nothing."All of which is part of the project of ensuring that no-one is deflected from an ongoing mission."I think we feel as if we've made a bit of progress over the last three games and it's just making sure we keep on improving and if we can do that I'm sure we can put Wales under pressure on Saturday," said Brown."It is a different challenge and we need to take quite a bit from the last two wins. It's been a long time since we've won back-to-back [championship] games, but in saying that we're aware that we can't afford to play as we did against Ireland and win every time, it just won't happen. We've looked at that game and we feel as if we've learned our lessons but it's about going out there and proving that at the weekend."Those comments sit against a background of what seems justifiable questioning of the quality of Scotland's overall performance against Ireland, in particular managing to win despite their opponents enjoying more than 70% of possession, a factor which would once have been expected to assure a team of victory.Increasingly, the evidence seems to suggest that in this tournament which, in a Northern Hemisphere winter, particularly in Scotland, makes for a very different sport to the elite Southern Hemisphere version of the game, it is better to play without the ball.Wales, like Scotland, have now won two matches while "losing" the possession and territory statistics while even England, the one team to have done better with three wins from three, were second best on both those counts in beating Ireland in Dublin. An argument could, then, be made that Scotland are getting it just right by absorbing whatever their opponents throw at them then countering effectively, either through the new-found running power of their back three, as against Italy, or the reliability of Greig Laidlaw's right boot.The half-back's goalkicking also accounted for Australia last summer, while Chris Paterson and Dan Parks regularly did likewise in recent years. In Brown's view, however, it is not a recipe for sustained success."Listen, I was obviously very, very pleased with the win but for us it's about making sure we're more consistent. We've won matches like that, but it's not been back to back," he noted. "The challenge now is making sure that every time we go out we're up at about 90 or 95% of our max. If you're on the back of stats like that week after week it makes winning incredibly hard, so we want to try to even up the stats this week."Having failed to defeat Wales since 2007, Brown and his boys will be treating them with due respect."I see Wales as the reigning grand slam champions and while they lost a few games in the summer and at the tail end of last year, they were very, very close," Brown observed. "They just had a run of bad luck. It's a side that's packed with Lions, it's packed with world-class players and there's no doubt it's going to be an incredibly tough ask. On top of that, I think they're going for their fifth or sixth away win in a row so the challenges don't come much bigger."It would actually be a fifth successive away win in the championship as well as an eighth win in nine matches overall which, as Brown would be first to acknowledge, places Scotland's pursuit of a third successive win, all at home, in perspective.

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We must even up the stats, says Scotland captain

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