Biggar’s swipe at ‘best team in world’ claims
DAN Biggar has piled the pressure on Scotland and has challenged them to prove they are as good as they think they are.
Scotland have been showered with plaudits following their stunning victory over England at Twickenham last weekend. Given Wales began their Six Nations campaign with a comprehensive home loss to Ireland, most experts have written off Warren Gatland’s side.
But Biggar insists he has heard it before and believes Scotland have yet to prove they can back up good results with another one.
“Scotland played well last week against England but according to you guys they are the best team around aren’t they?,” said Biggar somewhat sarcastically.
“We’ll have to see how they go on Saturday, and let’s see if they can back it up because the pressure is all on them.
“They’re red-hot favourites, best team in the tournament, so we’ll see how they go Saturday. We don’t seem to get any credit, and other teams seem to get a lot of praise for probably not quite the success we’ve had, but that’s how it goes.
“I think our record is as good as anyone’s in this competition over the previous 10 years or whatever.”
Wales have dominated this fixture over the past couple of decades, emerging victorious in 17 of their previous 20 Test matches against Scotland.
During that period Wales have won six titles, including four Grand Slams, while Scotland have been without silverware since 1999.
And while Biggar has been impressed with Scotland recently, he does thinks the media hype surrounding Gregor Townsend’s side is over the top.
“Medals are important when you look back at your career, and we’ve been lucky enough to fill the cabinet a few times, and it’s up to other teams to try and replicate that really,” said the Toulon outside-half.
“And hopefully, if teams do that, then they’ll deservedly get praise but like I said, they’re a fantastic team at the minute playing with confidence, lots of good players.
“But from our point of view, it’s same old really. In Wales, you lose a game, you get s ***** d off, you win it is just sort of brushed over really. It’s one of those things where we just try and control what we can.
“But we do have a bit of a laugh that there are other teams around who get a fair bit of praise without really backing it up, I suppose.
“We have only lost to Scotland twice in my time.”
Despite Biggar’s frustrations he respects the current crop of Scotland players and is expecting a tough battle this afternoon when he will go head-to-head with 2021 British & Irish Lions team-mate Finn Russell.
“We have got a good record against them but that goes out of the window on Saturday I think,” he said.
“They’ll fancy their chances, they’ve picked a strong side, lots of good players obviously who played well last week and they will be full of confidence.
“But it was the same last year, we got off to a really slow start in Ireland and then played Scotland and you guys wrote us off before the game was played and we rolled our sleeves up and did a job.
“We’re hoping that will be the same this weekend because if you listen to everyone – which is what is great about this game – we might as well not bother catching the flight.
“Probably the one thing you expect from him (Russell) is not knowing what to expect. We spoke a little bit about him this week but we try not to focus too much on him because a lot of the games you play he gives you lots of chances but he can create a lot for his own team as well.
“It’s just about making sure we are switched on and our spacings are good and our defensive line is good then hopefully it will take a lot of his options away.”