Six Nations campaign provides some convincing evidence of improvement
JUST when you thought this season could not possibly have another twist in it, along comes a game like last Friday’s win against France. It was unbelievable.
I’ve never won a match like that in my career – with the winning score coming four minutes into overtime - and I could not have been happier just to be part of that Scotland team. I’d watched them play throughout the whole tournament and seen how well they were going and I was just itching to play a part. Then to get involved at the end, in a game like that, was incredible.
I missed the first two games of the Six Nations because I was still recovering from injury, then had to sit out the next two because of suspension. So the match in the Stade de France was my only chance to play a part in this year’s Championship, and even with 10 minutes to go on Friday, I was sitting on the bench wondering if I was going to get on at all, because Finn had been playing well. Then when he got the red card I thought there might be a halfchance, and then obviously Gregor gave me the nod to go on.
We have been saying for the past few years that we’re growing as a team, and a lot of people from the outside have replied ‘Yeah, but are you really?’ I think in this Six Nations we’ve provided some pretty convincing evidence that we really are in a good place, and I’m sure that, with the players who are already established in the squad and the younger ones who are just breaking into it, we can continue on this path and keep getting better. With the right attitude we can be a pretty special team next year and in the years to come.
As far as how the Championship went for us as a whole, it’s a tough one to decide, because we came fourth, but some of the results were massive. So on the one hand, there are plenty of positives for us to take out of the tournament. A lot of people spoke in the dressing room after the France game, and the thing I best remember Gregor saying is just how proud he was, particularly of
that match, but also of the win at Twickenham that kicked off this year’s tournament on such a high note.
It was Ryan Wilson’s 50th cap, and he spoke after the game too, about the jersey and what it means. It was pretty special to hear how much it meant to him. It means a lot to everyone who pulls it on, but it was even sweeter for him getting that 50, because I think he had perhaps started to doubt that he would ever get it, and of course he was only called up at the last minute after Matt Fagerson was injured in training.
That win in Paris was obviously special, as I said, particularly as it was our first victory there since 1999. And of course we had not won at Twickenham in even longer, and we’d also gone too long without a game in Wales - something we managed late last year in the rearranged 2020 Six Nations game. So that was three big monkeys off our back in the space of a few months. But we also touched on the fact that the Ireland and Wales games this year were missed opportunities. We’re still kicking ourselves for that Wales game, which we lost by a point. And while Ireland played very well against us, again, we were within a score.
Those two matches showed how small moments can lose you Test matches. But then against France, it was another small moment right at the death that gave us the victory.
You can take massive confidence from things like that as players - to know that, at the end of the game, you have the players who have the ability to win a game for you and the mental toughness that is also needed. The England game, too, was also a huge boost to our confidence, and when we’re in those moments again, it will be a lot easier to believe that we can win.
And now it’s back to France again, with Glasgow, for tonight’s Challenge Cup match against Montpellier. They had a really good result at the weekend, winning 29-16 away to Toulouse, and they’re obviously a pretty useful side.
But Glasgow had a good result at the weekend too, scoring six tries in a 46-25 win against Treviso, and confidence is high at the moment. When we all got together at training earlier this week everyone was in a good mood, and that’s what you want from your squad.
It’s been a tough season for the squad and the coaching staff, with some inconsistent form, and players coming and going from Scotland camp, and Covid. But now we’ve got our full squad back together for the first time since the start of the year, and I think there’s no excuses now. We’ve got to show what we’re about as a squad and as a team.
Certainly, we feel that with the squad we’ve got now there’s a real chance to get to the later stages of this tournament and potentially win it. And what better way to start than with a win in
Montpellier?
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