PREDICTABILITY need not always be dull. The Scotland squad which was announced yesterday for the Six Nations Championship contained no shocks, in fact nothing that could even be called a mild surprise. Yet it is, nonetheless, an exciting collection of names, one which can only whet the appetite for the forthcoming tournament.
The main reason for that is the team’s performances at last year’s Rugby World Cup. They produced some enterprising rugby to reach the knockout stages, of course, but we can also take a great deal of encouragement, strange as it may seem, from the things they did wrong - including that heartbreaking quarter-final defeat by Australia.
If Scotland had done everything right in that match yet still lost heavily, or if in that tournament they were a mature team who had been at the top of their game for years, we might well conclude that there was no more to come from them. But they did not do everything right – far from it. And they are in fact a team far closer to the start of its evolution than its end.
The errors made were often slight ones – easily avoided by more experienced players, especially those more accustomed to being in pressurised situations. With a little more accuracy – a quality that Vern Cotter, the national coach, likes to stress – those errors could have been avoided.
In other words, the basic talent is there all right– still raw in some cases but steadily growing in stature. Practice in competing at the highest level should be all that is required to go from contenders to achievers.
After last year’s whitewash it may be a step too far for Scotland to win the title this year. But the demands they make on themselves are high, and their ambitions are certainly far loftier than just sneaking a narrow win over Italy to scrape into fifth place and avoid the Wooden Spoon.
The other encouraging aspect of the predictability of the squad, of course, is what it says about Cotter’s attitude to his players. He knows what his best team is, or at least what a large nucleus of it is, and he trusts them to carry on improving. It is a trust based not only on their ability, but also on their willingness to engage in positive self-criticism.
“There is a no-excuse culture within the team,” Cotter said yesterday when asked to look back on the Wallabies game, in which referee Craig Joubert erroneously awarded the Australians a late penalty with which they won the game. “We’ll sit down, and [that match] may be discussed, but the most important thing to be taken from that is what can we do better? What can WE do better?
“The referee is always going to be there, and we’re not always going to be able to agree with him. But in the game there are mistakes made by everybody, and he’s going to make them as well, so what can we do within the group? It’s a young group, and they’ll be looking at how we can improve.”
The greatest concern for Cotter, as things stand, is the number of injuries within the squad. If the England game were being played today rather than a fortnight on Saturday, more than half a dozen of the 35 named yesterday might well be unavailable.
Alasdair Dickinson, the Edinburgh prop, has been sidelined for a few weeks, while his front-row team-mate Ross Ford has been rested because of a rib injury. Sean Maitland, the London Irish winger, has a hamstring strain, and the Glasgow trio of Tommy Seymour, Peter Horne and Josh Strauss have also all missed out of late.
The greatest concern, however, is over Mark Bennett, who has given Scotland so much of their cutting edge over the past year or so. The Glasgow centre had a scan on his injured shoulder earlier this week and for the moment does not need surgery, according to Cotter. He could even be back in time for the championship opener at Murrayfield.
Nonetheless, the coach gave the distinct impression that Bennett would not be rushed, and suggested that Alex Dunbar and Duncan Taylor would start as the centre combination against England. “Alex Dunbar has just come back and we’re happy with his performance against Northampton,” Cotter said of the Glasgow back.
“We’ve got Duncan Taylor as well, who has done well for Saracens. We’ll just see how the mix will be.
“Duncan was one of those players we couldn’t select [for the World Cup] because of injury, as was Alex Dunbar. Having those two available now, specially with the injuries to Mark and Peter Horne, it’s nice to have a little bit of depth there.”
The hope, of course, is that the injured players make their way back and are not immediately replaced on the treatment table by team-mates. As well as those named in the squad who are making their way back to fitness, Fraser Brown, omitted at present, could be only three or four weeks away from a return to playing for Glasgow.
A clean bill of health would be ideal, of course. But even as things stand, we are justified in approaching the championship with a fair amount of realistic optimism.
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 hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel