U20s 6N: France v Scotland: "If you're not first, nothing else matters" – Jack Dempsey
Yesterday at 06:00 PM
JACK DEMPSEY was on Scotland team media duty earlier this week and provided a thoughtful and wide-ranging interview to the assembled reporters, which included his take on what a winning mind-set looks like, the Six Nations being harder to win than the World Cup and why he likes the seven-one bench-split.
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Finn Russell spoke about mindset after the Wales game. Why do Scotland have this habit of drifting mentally during the match?
“Yeah, I’m not sure. Some of it’s individual. The guys are going to have different opinions on stuff like that. Some guys might lean tactical, some guys mental. A lot of what we talked about this morning was around tactical, so without going into crazy detail, that last try Wales scored, I think it was their 13, Max Llewellyn, who ended up scoring it. We weren’t in the right D [defence] system. We weren’t actually in the right personnel, so that’s got nothing to do with mental. That’s got to do with clarity of role, so that’s where it’s not always as black and white as sitting in a group and being like: ‘We’ve got to be switched on’. You’ve got to know your role, and you’ve got to do it when you’re 78 minutes in, fatigued as well, even when we know the game’s won.
“You go up 35-8, the game’s won. We’ve done enough to win the game. No matter where you are, what level you’re playing at, there’s always going to be that mystery of why teams let other teams in. Even when I started at Glasgow, we had that exact same thing. We’d start off quick and then let other teams in. Maybe it’s fitness, maybe it’s mental. It’s the chicken and the egg, isn’t it? But it is what it is. You’ve got to keep learning, you’ve got to keep getting better.”
Whatever the reason, Scotland can’t have another lapse like that in Paris?
“Correct. We all know from 1-23 they can score from anywhere with the personnel they’ve got, especially the two boys they’ve got on the wings. It’s just that heightened awareness. We know if we have mental lapses in our game, we looked at that try that got disallowed by Wales, Faletau ended up scoring it, that’s a prime example of where France will kill you. And they’ll do it five to eight times a game, not once. So they’re going to look to do that off counter. We’ve played France enough now, we’ve played them a couple of times in the lead-up to the World Cup. So we’ve had a good sample size against this squad where we don’t need to make up a new game-plan or anything like that. It’s not like we’ve never seen them before. We know what’s coming and we’ve dealt with it before. But it’s about making sure we show up for the 80.
So the narrow defeat in Paris during the 2023 Six Nations and in the World Cup warm-up match in Saint-Étienne later that year gives you confidence?
“Not me personally. No, I don’t take confidence from couldas and wouldas, closes and maybes. Going on what I said in terms of we know what we’re coming up against, that makes it easier to prep for them. That’s my main point.
“Our focus though is about ourselves, as it has been this whole campaign, because we haven’t put on that 80 yet. If we look at this time last year, we were sitting here coming back from Rome after a game that we should have won. We went up by two or three tries again and we let a team in and we lost. Luckily, at the weekend there [against Wales] we won. And then we went to Dublin to an Irish team that were playing to win the title, just like France are doing this week, same kind of story. But we put in our best defensive performance of the campaign.
“So, I look at stuff like that, [and] that gives me confidence because we’re a team that backs up heartbreak or backs up poor moments in games [with a positive response]. We should be sitting here celebrating a pretty fantastic win against Wales where we did all this really nice stuff, but we just let them back in and robbed ourselves of that feeling.
“But we’ve got the role now of kind of party poopers or whatever you want to call it, where we go in, no one backs us to win and put on an 80 minute performance. That’s really all it is.
“So it doesn’t give me confidence that we’ve come close or we beat them in Murrayfield before the World Cup in a game that didn’t mean anything. But it gives me confidence that I know the boys that are in this squad will always bounce back after disappointment.”
France in Paris playing for the championship at 9pm local time is going to be some atmosphere. Will you guys cope?
“Me personally, I don’t really care about any of that. That’s for them. They deserve to be in a position to be excited for their team who are playing for the Six Nations. For us, it’s just another moment in your career, isn’t it?
“Two years ago we played there, that was my first time playing against France in the Six Nations. And then that time I would answer the question: ‘Wow, what an achievement, what a special place to play’. You see all the pageantry and the flags and the songs. It’s a really good place to play. But we’re going there against the favourites to try and upset their party. And that’s the hardest thing to do right now. But we’re not too worried about what the external is. We just want to focus on ourselves.”
Frustrating that unlikely to be able to finish top half even if you win in Paris?
“If you’re not first, nothing else matters. That’s really my point of view. That might not be everyone else’s. If you come second or you come last, what’s the difference? I didn’t grow up with the Six Nations, so I know there’s always that to-ing and fro-ing, you want to finish above England as a Scot, you want to finish above other people. But first or nothing, that’s my opinion.”
Is Scotland’s problem that they can’t possibly maintain the tempo they have shown in the first half against England and Wales for the full 80, and they struggle to adapt when it shifts to a more attritional contest?
"Yeah, you’re right. Every game has a different narrative. So if we look at the Wales game at the weekend, we might have not had the opportunities in the second half like we did in the first half, but we took all our opportunities in the first half and that was why we won the game. Whereas we could be sitting here and not have hit those opportunities [in the first half] and they had a great second half and they win the game. What Gregor touched on after the game is that we won the Test match. That’s the key. You bank that and you take the learnings, right?
"This time last year, we lost to Italy and all people care about – all we care about – is the result, right? The starting point of any professional sporting game is win or lose. That’s where it comes from.
"But you've got to make sure you’re taking the learnings as well and that’s kind of where the frustration comes into it as fans and as players and coaches. You’re right: the way we want to play is to open teams up early, get a lead and play expansive and exciting, especially at home for our fans.
"But you’ve got to understand every game’s got a different narrative. This game, this weekend could be 6-9 and we've got to find a way to win, and that’s all that matters to us, getting the win."
So being pragmatic is key, isn’t it?
"Exactly.
"And I think the scrum is always a big indicator of what you’re talking about because the scrum can come down to so many different interpretations. You’ve got the ref, you’ve got two teams that might have different tactics that they change during the week for that game.
"We’ve got to get a lot better at adapting during the game. Our coaches do a great job here in all kinds of units of the game with putting the game-plan together. But the reality is that game plan can change throughout 80 minutes.
"The Springboks are the best at that in the world because they’re so dominant in what they do, they force teams to change their game-plan. You’ve got to kind of adapt on the run rather than sitting in here on Monday morning reviewing, saying we could have done this, we should have done this. And that’s where I think the biggest growth will come for us, is making sure we adapt all aspects of our game based on what is happening.
“We were playing the same way we played at the end against Wales that we did at the front … we didn’t have the momentum, but we’re playing like we did. Stuff like that is where the growth will come."
Are Scotland caught in a cycle of promising lots and then under-delivering?
"Maybe. I don’t like talking for other people.
"Since moving over here, there’s definitely always been that sense from the media, from the fans of Scotland rugby, because there always is that hype and then there’s always the disappointment, if you want to call it that. But it also just shows how competitive the Six Nations always is.
"I didn’t grow up watching a whole lot of it. I always kind of watched the highlights the next day of some of the big games. But you realise just how tight these games get and the big moments, how much they mean.
"We obviously know the England game, the last four years I’ve been a part of, it’s always come down to one score. And this year we score a worldie of a try to essentially win the game but we can’t get the kick. It’s just splitting hairs sometimes.
"And you can always say eventually it’ll fall in Scotland’s favour. But unfortunately sport doesn’t work like that. You’ve got to get what you deserve and you’ve got to earn what you deserve.
"So that’s always the motivation. We’re not a team who is going to just wait for our time to happen. We’ve got to go and take it.
"And that’s very much the vibe that we set off before this tournament, the last year’s tournament and the year before. And it’s about making sure you keep learning and then you take your opportunities. And unfortunately this year we didn’t."
Do you ever get sick of that, having to 'take the learnings'?
"When you’ve been playing pro rugby for over ten years you get sick of just about everything! You do. But you’ve got to stay in the fight and you’ve got to keep learning.
"And I can say that now whereas I wouldn’t when I was younger. On the back of winning the league with Glasgow, which is the first time I’ve won a top tier competition, [I can say] your time will come and the opportunity will present itself. But you have to take it. And you might only get one or two [chances] in your career and you’ve just got to take it.
"But my point is the understanding of that is what has come leaps and bounds in this room with these players. So it’s not everyone dropping their head now again after not being able to win a Six Nations. It’s taking the learnings from each experience that they’ve had and making sure that we’re in the fight again."
Did you get that feeling about the stars aligning during Glasgow’s run to the URC title?
“It’s probably like a pie chart. It’s a lot of a few things. No matter what sport you’re playing, there’s always an element of luck. Luck of injuries, luck of form. We’re talking about that Glasgow year, last year, we had pretty much no injuries. Everyone was coming in form. We hit form at the right time as well. But that’s all kind of data. Day-to-day, week-to-week stuff.
“There’s also a belief. That’s what builds over months. That’s what builds over seasons. That’s the thing you’ve got to have, for sure. Belief in each other, belief in the system, belief in the game-plan. That’s something that definitely exists here.
“The biggest thing is, we all know there’s been the narrative the last 18 months to two years about s that complete performance. It’s the Jekyll and Hyde of us at the moment. Not only game-to-game, but week-to-week. That’s what we’re striving to find all the time.
“It’s about lifting that floor, because we know our ceiling is, if we play higher, we can play with any team in the world.
“Will the time come? The time is now. The time has been for the last two or three years, but you’ve got to nail it all.
“I don't want to give a crazy quote, but it is almost harder to win [the Six Nations] than a World Cup, in some elements, because you’ve only got one chance at it.
“In a World Cup, you look at South Africa, they’ve lost a game in both World Cups [2019 and 2023], but they get to the quarters and then they go all the way. None of that exists in Six Nations. You’ve got to win every game, and you’ve got to get bonus points. That’s it.
“It’s bloody tough to win a Six Nations, and that’s why Ireland, who are on the verge of winning three, you’ve got to tip your hat to stuff like that and you’ve got to look at why they’ve been able to do it.”
What’s your take on the big seven-one bench-split question?
"In general? I don’t really have a view either way in terms of positive or negative. Just as a fan of sports in general, whether it’s rugby or any professional sport, I just love the thinking outside the box, always looking for a competitive edge. That’s what I respect as a sports fan.
"The funny thing, though, is you’ve got to have the horses to do it. So obviously the only people who have done it is the Springboks and the French, who are probably the only two teams in the world who have the depth of horses to do that, with also the flexibility of the backs who can cover if the worst happens in terms of injury, because that’s obviously the risk you run, whether it’s six-two or seven-one.
“But as a rugby player, if I see a teamsheet with a seven-one or a six-two, it doesn’t really faze me either way."
Could you envisage Scotland doing seven-one?
"In this current team, I wouldn’t say why we would. Just because the way we play, the way we use our backs, it’d probably be too risky to do that.
"You think about all the touches Duhi [Duhan van der Merwe], DG [Darcy Graham], Blair [Kinghorn] in particular, our back three, get compared to other teams. From a medical point of view, just looking at the load they get, being in contact, getting injured, because we play more to our backs than any other team in the world. So, there’s no need to do that [go 7-1].”
Has that surprised you since arriving here from Australia?
“There’s just nothing like it anywhere. I obviously grew up watching and then playing in the Rugby Championship, which was the old school Tri Nations, but you get two, three shots at the All Blacks, two shots at the Springboks and two shots at Argentina, traditionally.
“Here you don’t get a home and away. Obviously it alternates every year, but, for example, this year we only get one shot at France and we have to play in Paris, then if you break down the micro kind of elements of it is where you pull them in the draw, so we’re going to go to France now, they're on a roll and we've got to go there when they’re going to have a chance to win it all, rather than playing them, say, first round when everyone’s even.
“There’s all this stuff that goes into it, which is really fascinating, you know, and cool for the fans and everything, but as a player, you really respect it when you look at a team like Ireland who have won it back-to-back.
“It is frustrating when you don’t put on a performance. Look at that Ireland game round two, we beat Italy, we have Ireland at home – we’re not going to have them at home again for another two years – and we just don’t show up and play our best rugby. That's the chance gone.
“I feel for all the fans, who obviously have been watching for years and decades, but I’m telling you, it’s hard playing as well!”
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The post U20s 6N: France v Scotland: “If you’re not first, nothing else matters” – Jack Dempsey appeared first on Scottish Rugby News from The Offside Line.
