6N: England v Scotland: Gregor Townsend says clear heads will be key to extending Calcutta Cup run
Yesterday at 05:03 PM
GREGOR TOWNSEND says his Scotland team won’t get sucked into any mind games ahead of Saturday’s Six Nations crunch match against England.
Speaking at his team announcement press-conference earlier today [Thursday], Townsend claimed he was oblivious to a series of articles published by newspapers south of the Border this week which have variously labelled the navy blue forwards as “weedy”, questioned the team’s value to the Six Nations and claimed that the team is losing support north of the Border due to 'plastic players' imported from South Africa and Australia. It is had to believe that is the case because the Scotland coach makes a point of being across everything and anything related to his team, so we can assume that he was trying to slow down the hype train ahead of this weekend’s Calcutta Cup clash.
A recurring theme has been that Scotland’s recent run of success in Calcutta Cup matches – four wins on the bounce, and five wins plus a draw in the seven years that Gregor Townsend has been in charge – can be explained by the smaller nation’s deep antipathy towards England, meaning they raise their game to some sort of superhuman level, whereas England’s players don’t share that level of hunger for the game.
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“It is a small feast amid a wider famine, and is founded on a motivational imbalance,” said Chris Foy in The Daily Mail on Monday, alluding to Scotland’s continual failures against Ireland and their high-water mark of third in the Six Nations. “There is no escaping the fact the oldest fixture in international rugby matters more to one side than the other. While England players will be hell-bent on revenge this year, the normal pattern is that they can’t match the fired-up intensity coming at them, founded on historical antipathy.”
Churlish stuff, and Townsend was determined not to fan the flames by biting back, or by suggesting that the external hype will provide extra motivation to his players ahead of Saturday evening’s clash.
"I believe we do [bring the same intensity to every game], but you can’t deny history, you can’t deny the fact we play for the Calcutta Cup,” he reasoned. “Four years ago, it was the 150th anniversary of the first ever international game which was Scotland against England. That’s brilliant, it’s a thing we should praise even more that we are playing for something unique and historic.
"And I think if you ask the Welsh supporters and Irish supporters and the French supporters which is the biggest game you play every year, they’ll choose the English game out of all [because] they’re the biggest nation that we come up against so it’s great for a supporter as banter, and if you can get one up over your nearest rivals, your most historic rivals, then it means more for your week and potentially weeks to come.
"[But] I don’t think it’s ever the case the game of rugby is won by who’s up for it more, and sometimes it’s lost by being up for it too much,” he continued. “I mentioned earlier that I’ve certainly had that experience as a player. And in 2019, I felt I got the players up a bit too emotional for the start of the game.
“You’ve got to be lucid, calm, in control, but you have to be aggressive. You’ve got to be physical, and you’ve got to bring that out, and maybe in the past we got the balance too much on the passion, the emotional side of it.
“So I know the passion will be there, the passion will be there to play for your team-mates, to play for your country, to show an improved performance from the last game. But we have to be calm amongst the chaos, which there will be at times at the weekend.”
Asked if the players had taken notice of the criticism which has been sent their way following Scotland’s loss to Ireland a fortnight ago, Townsend replied: “If they have, I’ve not been there for those discussions. I think the focus is on us delivering a better performance than Ireland, and delivering a performance that can get us a win. And that is players playing with as much physicality as they can against a really tough opponent.
"It’s up to them, I don’t know if players are looking at media, social media or rugby media, they’ve got their lives to lead so you’d have to ask them individually,” he added.
“This group of players have had the experience of winning at Twickenham, which can help as you prepare for the game. But the reality is it's about what happens in 80 minutes. And we know it’s going to be a very tough match.”
When asked about his own excellent record of only one defeat to England as head coach, he quipped: “Well, it was raining that day, so maybe that was a factor!
“They’ve been really tight games. Apart from that day, we’ve had really good weather. And they’ve been open games. That suits our strengths. At times that suits England’s strengths as well, we know that … if I think back to the 38-all draw [in 2019], the dry weather suited them that first half. But I do think the games have been better to watch. I think throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, there was a real approach of not playing much rugby, of being overly physical from both teams. But we certainly know that we have to play to our strengths, which is producing quick ball, getting the ball to the key players, the key strike-runners we have on the team. England will try to stop that. But I do believe they’ll want to play an open game too.”
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The post 6N: England v Scotland: Gregor Townsend says clear heads will be key to extending Calcutta Cup run appeared first on Scottish Rugby News from The Offside Line.
