Marler intent on wrestling cup back from dominant Scotland
Joe Marler is desperate to help England wrestle back the Calcutta Cup after growing exasperated with Scotland’s recent dominance of the fixture.
The 33-year-old prop grew up in an era when the Red Rose firmly held the upper hand over the Scots and he was on the winning side four times in a row after first playing in the highly-charged showdown in 2014.
The tables have turned since 2018, however. Scotland have lost only one of their last six matches against the Auld Enemy under Gregor Townsend and go into today’s match buoyed by having won each of the last three.
That situation rankles with Marler, who is intent on ensuring England are celebrating on enemy territory come this evening. “It would just be nice to be on the winning end of it for once because it has been so long since we have,” he said at Murrayfield yesterday.
“Obviously we had 2020, but the continued dominance from Scotland over us – it has been a long time now. From the start, we hadn’t lost to Scotland. Then the 2018 game the tide started to turn, the players that came through in the Scottish side, you go, ‘Hang on, they have got some worldclass operators now’.
“The last few years without that cup, seeing Finn Russell and Greig Laidlaw, that video of them with their shirts off and singing with the cup. I wish I could be doing that rather than watching it. Or that famous Finn Russell photo where he’s got his Spiderman hands up and he’s loving it.
“That stirs passion in me to go, ‘I want that cup’, and I know a number of the other boys in the team want that cup back as well.”