No room for gloom with Scotland, says Jeffrey
Former internationalist says Cotter’s squad has brought optimism to Murrayfield
HERE must have been times in recent years when some of the great names of Scottish rugby have looked on the national side and been close to despair. When they saw the team they once played for bobbing along at the bottom of the Six Nations table and wondered if their own achievements would ever be emulated.
Not any more. No-one is suggesting that the current team is about to follow the sides of 1984 and 1990 and win a Grand Slam, but there is a more hopeful mood abroad as we look forward to the start of this year’s championship.
John Jeffrey, for one, has been excited by recent performances from Vern Cotter’s side, and is convinced the squad contains excellent individuals and is also becoming collectively more efficient.
“Like everyone else, I’m optimistic – a lot more optimistic,” the former back-row forward said. “In the past it has been guarded optimism, but this time, on the back of excellent results for Edinburgh and Glasgow and also what was seen in the autumn window, I’m more positive.
“But I’m also a wee bit cautious as we always are as Scotsmen. It’s a tough gig to start off with. You want a home game and we’ve got that, but it’s against Ireland. We might think we’re doing well, but they’re flying at the moment on the back of all the provinces as well as beating the All Blacks in Chicago. They’re pretty confident at the moment, but we have every right to be as well.
“I think we’ve got a bigger depth of talent now in positions where we would struggle in the past. Now, for instance, I would say we have five world-class centres, or certainly people who are capable of being first choice for Scotland. We have strength in depth in there and in the second row.
“Asking young guys to do five Six Nations games in seven weeks is a tough ask, but they’re showing they are capable of doing it.”
While Ireland at home will be tough, the record suggests that winning at Twickenham will be the biggest ask of all for Scotland, who have not triumphed there since 1983, the year before Jeffrey made his international debut. “It is a huge ask,” he accepted. “It is a phenomenal place to go.
“They’ve gone something like 16 unbeaten games there, so it is fantastic for them. But, then, thinking about World Cup seedings, if we beat England, second in the world, away from home, that would guarantee us a place in the top eight.”
As one of our representatives on the Six Nations Championship committee, Jeffrey is one of the most influential Scots in the game at present, and was involved in the decision to introduce bonus points into the tournament. Stressing that the new system is only being trialled at the moment, and that there is no conclusive evidence that bonus points will be purely beneficial, he nonetheless suggested that it should encourage attacking rugby.
“For years they’ve been saying we should bring it in. Looking back over the years, it would make minimal difference [to the final standings]. Maybe twice it would have changed positions. It has been debated for a long time.
“We decided to bring it in when we looked at the end of the championship two years ago. On that Super Saturday people had to win to win the championship and there were a lot of tries. It was great. It was fantastic because countries had to score tries.
“What we asked was how we could get positive rugby. The flipside of the argument is that you don’t need bonus points when you see what happened on Super Saturday.
“This is just a trial at the moment. It’s not in for good: we just want to see how it goes.”