Cotter fires warning shot as Scotland ends drought
ROME: Scotland coach Vern Cotter fired an early warning shot at France ahead of their visit to “horrible” Murrayfield after a stylish 36-20 win in Rome ended their nine-match Six Nations winless streak. Scotland’s last tournament win came against Italy in 2014 but after a commanding performance at the same Stadio Olimpico on Saturday, confidence has come flooding back to Cotter’s underperforming side.
France, whose Grand Slam hopes were ended by a 19-10 defeat to Wales in Cardiff on Friday, are likely to make life very tough for the Scots when they visit Murrayfield in a fortnight. After seeing captain Greig Laidlaw kick 21 points with the boot and Scotland score three tries to Italy’s two, Cotter suggested Guy Noves’s men will have sat up and taken notice-especially since they only escaped with a 23-21 win over Italy in Paris.
“They (France) came close to losing against Italy in that first game when they probably got caught out defensively,” said Cotter. “In the following game (a 10-9 win over Ireland) you saw a reaction from them where they became far more physical in defense and had a real crack at Ireland. “I know Guy (Noves) reasonably well and he will have them up emotionally for the game (at Murrayfield). “And when they’re up emotionally, they bring their physicality. It’s just a matter of us trying to find a way to dampen them, to take away the fire and spark they may have.” After narrow defeats to England (15-9) and Wales (27-23), Scotland were under intense pressure to end their drought in a match billed as the wooden spoon decider.
‘Make it horrible’
A pair of tries from John Barclay and John Hardie had Scotland in the driving seat just after the quarter-hour and 17-10 ahead at half-time. Yet it took a determined defensive display from the visitors to prevent an Azzurri fightback during a thrilling 10minute spell after Finn Russell had been sinbinned for hands in the ruck. When Russell returned with 10 minutes remaining, Scotland regained control and sealed victory with Tommy Seymour’s late try. In a positive sign for Cotter’s men, Scotland dominated at the scrum and lineouts, and their fluid attacking play often had Italy scrambling. “I knew today when we took that field we were going to win. I could see it in the boys’ eyes,” said Laidlaw, who was voted man-ofthe-match. “The scrum was absolutely fantastic. The character shown when we were defending our line... sometimes that gets forgotten about. There were 14, sometimes 15 of us just digging in, filling in wherever needed, and that’s what probably got us across the line.” Laidlaw called for help from the home fans for the France match. “We’ve talked before about making Murrayfield a horrible place for visiting teams to come and play, and we’ve not forgotten about that,” Laidlaw said. “France are a slightly different challenge-big, physical and we’ll have a good look at them in the next couple of weeks and try and come up with a couple of things that will win us the game.”