‘Nothing to fear against England’
SCOTLAND head coach Bryan Easson says his team will not suffer from a collective inferiority complex when they kick off their Six Nations campaign against England tomorrow afternoon in Doncaster.
In 22 games played between the two nations this century, England have a 100-per-cent success rate with an average winning margin of 45 points per match, and the odds appear to be stacked against Scotland turning things around.
England have a much bigger player pool to draw from and their international programme is fully professional, while
Scotland currently have seven players on academy-style contracts. Add in the fact that the Allianz Premier 15s league has run a full schedule in England this season (albeit playing adapted rules to try to minimise the risk of Covid), while there has been no domestic rugby in Scotland since last March, and you can’t help wondering whether this is going to be a fair fight – but that’s not the sort of mentality Easson has any time for.
“Yeah, it is a fair fight,” he insisted. “Any game you play in is a fair fight, you have got to challenge yourselves. We have trained more than we ever have because of the situation we have been put in with Covid, so for me it is 15 versus 15.
“This weekend is a different ask for all teams in the Six Nations, nobody has played international rugby for a long time, so it is not about professionalism, it is about how you prepare for the weekend.”
Easson has made three changes – all in the pack – to the side which secured an excellent draw against France when women’s international rugby briefly came out of lockdown in October, with Christine Belisle starting at tight-head prop, Louise McMillan being deployed in the second-row and Siobhan
Cattigan filling the boots of the talismanic Jade Konkel – who is currently unavailable whilst completing here fire-fighter training – at No.8.
Scotland (v England at Castle Park in Doncaster, on Saturday @ 3pm): C Rollie; R Shankland, H Smith, L Thomson, M Gaffney; H Nelson, M McDonald; L Bartlett, L Skeldon, C Belisle, E Wassell, L McMillan, R Malcolm, R McLachlan, S Cattigan. Substitutes M Wright, P Muzambe, L Cockburn, E Gallagher, J Rettie, J Maxwell, S Law, L Musgrove.