GREGOR Townsend has admitted that as a young player he would get carried away by the emotion of playing for Scotland against England, and that as a result he failed to play to his best.
As he prepares his players for Saturday’s Calcutta Cup match at Twickenham, the Scotland coach wants them to be inspired by confidence in their own abilities rather than drawing too much on the whole mystique of the oldest fixture in international rugby.
“I drew on it too much when I was growing up,” the Scotland coach recalled. “I was playing age-group rugby at the time of the 1990 Grand Slam, and when I came up against England at schoolboy level and then played for Scotland at a young age, I put too much emotion into my performances.
“We know the importance of the fixture for our people, the historic importance, the joy it brings when we beat England. That’s there in the background. But from a coaching perspective it’s about [getting] a sense of where the players are.”
The historic importance is more obvious than ever this year, as it is the 150th anniversary of the first meeting between the two countries. Of course, that first international was held at Raeburn Place in Edinburgh and was won by the home side.
But this year also marks the 50th anniversary of a celebrated
win for Scotland at Twickenham – a result that became all the more special when it was followed by another victory just a week later at Murrayfield in a match arranged to commem-
orate the centenary.
Townsend is confident that careful preparation in the days and weeks leading up to the match will ensure that his
players go into it with the correct attitude, and that they do not get too caught up in thinking about the past.
“If they’re ready throughout their preparation then it doesn’t need much more focus on the emotional side. If we feel they don’t understand the importance of the game, we can add that.
“But I don’t see that with this group. The energy they’re bringing at training, the fact we’ve got so many quality
players now competing for pos-itions in the team. It’s about allowing them to go out and express themselves and learn, if you’re in the game, how to win.”
Stuart Bathgate
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