HamisH Watson
tHe e dinburgH and scotland f lanker fresH from a summer tour
“beating the Wallabies is probably the biggest win of my career”
this season has been a pretty significant one for me after a decent six nations. i played quite a lot of rugby for edinburgh at the start of the season and after that i was lucky enough to start for scotland in the autumn tests. From there i went into the six nations and then i got onto the summer tour. tours are always quite tough, with all the bumps and bruises from a long season, but you’ve got to get through it to try to get the wins.
Being in singapore with the squad was a bit different. on one training day we were running around in 32°C heat. i struggled with a groin injury so didn’t play but it was a great experience. We put in a good performance in beating italy. then we headed to sydney.
i got asked recently what it was like to win there against the Wallabies. the answer is it’s probably the biggest win of my career. they were third in the world rankings at the time and are a big rugby nation, so the fact we won it away from home is amazing. When we’ve played them recently there have only been a couple of points in it when we have lost, and we won in newcastle (nsW) in 2012, so it was great that we did it there.
For gregor townsend, it was a big statement of intent. to beat a big nation like australia in only your second game in charge is great. it bodes well because we’ve got some tough autumn fixtures coming up with australia again, samoa and the all Blacks in between. But winning away to australia shows that we have carried on our good form from the six nations.
i didn’t actually do too much to score that try against the Wallabies. it was good team support anyway, it just so happened i was on Duncan taylor’s inside when he passed it. it was an amazing try and really shows what we are capable of as a team. to score three tries away from home is great, and is something we have done consistently in the six nations recently – it’s no longer about scoring one try and relying on kicks to win.
gregor has been good with me. it helps that he knows a lot of the boys from glasgow. it’s the same for the management. there’s continuity with defence coach Matt taylor and Dan McFarland, who were at glasgow too, and that’s been good from my point of view. after the best six nations in a while, they have built on what Vern Cotter did. things haven’t changed too much but it’s early days yet. i think we will see gregor put more of his stamp on things in the coming months.
When we get back to scotland, edinburgh have given us until 24 July to have some time off. at the end of a tour we’re all a bit knackered and i’ll be heading to spain with the family for a week. after a pretty good season, we’ve got to try to get things going with edinburgh.
it’s an exciting time for the club. We’ve got Richard Cockerill as head coach now and we all know his pedigree – we’ve all heard of his accomplishments with Leicester and that time when they were winning trophy after trophy. he is a high-profile coach and i’m looking forward to getting to know him.
it’s an interesting time with the coaches, as playing under these guys could be very different. With scotland now we play a quick-ball style that suits my game. For edinburgh there might be quite a lot of go-forward, and hopefully i will improve that side of my game in the future. i’m looking forward to it.
With my game, there are still things that i want to improve. i feel my breakdown work has got better and i like to carry the ball. that is something that has improved in the past few years and playing regularly with edinburgh has helped with that.