McCallum won’t settle for ‘gallant losers’ tag

ROBBIE McCALLUM scored the second of his team’s four tries when Scotland Under-20s defeated Wales at Meggetland last year in what was not just their only win of that Six Nations campaign, but their only competitive win in the whole of 2019.

The age-grade side have already matched that record in 2020 with their excellent win in Italy three weeks ago lifting the heavy weight on continual failure off the young side’s shoulders, and the general tenor of this Six Nations campaign has been encouraging given that Sean Lineen’s men have pushed heavyweights Ireland, England and France all the way.

But McCallum says that he and his team-mates are not satisfied with the odd isolated success amid a general pattern of hard-luck stories, and they plan to finish their campaign on a high when they take on Wales in Colwyn Bay tonight.

“It has been really frustrating because we don’t really want the gallant losers tag, we are a good team with good players and we know how we can perform,” he said.

“I think it has been a positive campaign so far. There have been some tough losses, but we have played well throughout all of the games in spells and we want to put all of those bits together, so we are looking forward to taking on Wales.

“We know that they are a tough, tough team. We have played Wales quite a few times at various age-grades, and we have watched videos of them during this tournament, so we know they will come out hard – will tackle hard and it could be a brutal game – but we’re ready for it.”