SCOTLAND head coach Bryan Easson says his team will not suffer from a collective inferiority complex when they kick off their Six Nations campaign against England tomorrow afternoon in Doncaster.
In 22 games played between the two nations this century, England have a 100 percent success rate with an average winning margin of 45 points per match, and the odds appear to be stacked against Scotland turning things around any time soon.
England have a much bigger player pool to draw from and their international programme is fully professional, while Scotland currently have seven players on academy-style contracts. Add in the fact that the Allianz Premier 15s league has run a full schedule in England this season (albeit playing adapted rules to try to minimise the risk of Covid), while there has been no domestic rugby in Scotland since last March, and you can’t help wondering whether this is going to be a fair fight – but that’s not the sort of mentality Easson has any time for.
“Yeah, it is a fair fight,” he insisted. “Any game you play in is a fair fight, you have got to challenge yourselves. We have trained more than we ever have because of the situation we have been put in with Covid, so for me it is 15 versus 15 on Saturday. They have been playing week-in and week-out in the Premiership, but we have been having hit-outs every Saturday too.
“This weekend is a different ask for all teams in the Six Nations, nobody has played international rugby for a long time, so it is not about professionalism, it is about how you prepare for the weekend.
“Our hit-outs have been hugely intense. We’ve gone 10-minute blocks, 15-minute blocks, 20-minute blocks and so on, and from our GPS and from our data, some of these blocks have been of a higher intensity than some of the internationals we have played previously.”
Easson has made three changes – all in the pack – to the side which secured an excellent draw against France when women’s international rugby briefly came out of lockdown in October, with Christine Belisle starting at tight-head prop, Louise McMillan being deployed in the second-row and Siobhan Cattigan filling the boots of the talismanic Jade Konkel – who is currently unavailable whilst completing here fire-fighter training in London – at No8.
“Siobhan’s always pushed Jade really hard for a starting position anyway,” said Easson. “She brings something different. She maybe won’t carry as much as Jade but she is very good in contact situations and also has good skills so we’re looking forward to seeing how she gets on."
Scotland (v England at Castle Park in Doncaster, on Saturday @ 3pm): C Rollie; R Shankland, H Smith, L Thomson, M Gaffney; H Nelson, M McDonald; L Bartlett, L Skeldon, C Belisle, E Wassell, L McMillan, R Malcolm©, R McLachlan, S Cattigan. Replacements: M Wright, P Muzambe, L Cockburn, E Gallagher, J Rettie, J Maxwell, S Law, L Musgrove.
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