Richie Gray says Scotland are expecting a French backlash during Saturday night’s World Cup warm-up match in St Etienne – but the veteran second-row is confident that his team can meet fire with fire.
Scotland turned around a 21-3 half-time deficit against Les Bleus at Murrayfield last weekend to eventually run out 25-21 winners, with the victory especially impressive because it was achieved despite the hosts playing the final half hour with just 14-men following the red-carding of tight-head prop Zander Fagerson.
With coach Fabien Galthie expected to recall most of his frontline players – who were rested last week – for this re-match, Saturday is set to be the stiffest challenge Gregor Townsend’s side face during their four-match warm-up schedule.
So, it is vital that they start well – because the French are not going tire and lose focus during the second half like they did last weekend.
“I’m not sure what French team they will put out, but they’ll want to start with a bang,” acknowledged Gray. “Conditions will be difficult compared to what we’ve been training in as it’s going to be around 30C, and, ahead of a home World Cup, they’ll want to start things off with a bang and get the French people behind them.
“So, it’s going to be a good stepping-stone for us, and we want to continue to build momentum. It will show us where we’re really at because Saturday’s win showed that we’ve got a bit of resilience and are a team that has the ability to play under pressure, but in the same breath, we weren’t good enough in the first half.
“You can look at the mental side of that and whether we were on it or not, but there were also a few technical things that you don’t usually see from us during the season. So, there were a lot of good things that we did but there are also aspects that we will look to fix.”
READ MORE: Scotland World Cup relief as Zander Fagerson's handed three-match ban
Scotland will be without the suspended Fagerson on Saturday, but the good news is that the tight-head prop should be available for the team’s first match at the World Cup – against reigning champions South Africa on 10th September – if he completes a ‘Coaching Intervention Programme’, which will reduce his bad from three games down to two.
The aim of the course if to improve the poor ruck technique which led to Saturday’s sending off for dangerous play following a dangerous clear-out on French hooker Pierre Bourgarit.
Gray explained that his team-mate’s plight has served as a timely reminder to the squad of the importance of getting ruck and tackle technique right given that there is now a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to head-on-head contact.
“I think there is a bigger emphasis going into this game about how we’ve got to manage ourselves going into a ruck,” he explained. “You’ve got to get your feet right, and the big thing for us is driving not diving.
“But it’s hard because Zander’s card was 50 minutes into a Test match when fatigue starts to creep in. You’ve got a moving target and it comes down to around 0.1 of a second between a great clear-out and a dangerous one.
“It’s certainly not easy but from what I’ve seen from Zander he was trying to move his feet, trying to get into good position, and it was just an unfortunate rugby incident.
“It’s one of these things that we'll keep working on. We talk about it a lot, how discipline and cards are coming into the game more and more, and the team who can stay the most disciplined is usually the winner.”
The 33-year-old has spoken in the past about the importance of managing his workload in order to maintain peak form on match day, but he insisted he doesn’t want to be wrapped in cottonwool this weekend.
“In pre-seasons you’re probably talking three or four games before you’re hitting your straps," he reasoned. "Not just from a fitness or physical point of view but just because you’re a little bit rusty.
“So, from a personal performance perspective, looking at the stuff from the weekend, I was pretty pleased with a few things that we’d worked on in training, but then there were also a couple of sloppy errors that you wouldn’t usually make. So, I need that time to figure stuff out in that pressurised environment.”
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