WARMING UP FOR THE FIGHT

Hosts leaving nothing to chance to beat the chill factor and ensure Wales are frozen out

AT Ice Station Corstorphine, the home side have taken all necessary precautions to guard against freezing on the big occasion.

From hot water bottles at pitch side to training-ground games that combine silliness with serious intent, Scotland’s preparations are intended to insulate them against both the bitter cold of BT Murrayfield — and the white heat of Six Nations battle.

There’s always a risk that, following their historic opening win over England at Twickenham, Gregor Townsend’s men might back-slide just a little against Wales.

If they perform with the same cool thinking and fiery competitiveness that laid the English to waste, however, there’s no reason why this group shouldn’t become the first Scotland side since 1996 to start the Championship with consecutive victories.

They will face serious challenges, of course. Starting with the risk of numbed extremities.

The important part of the forecast for this afternoon and evening, the ‘feels like’ description that matters most to anyone fool enough to go running about in shorts, is for a rather fresh minus six degrees Centigrade.

‘The weather will have a huge effect on the players,’ admitted Scotland forwards coach John Dalziel yesterday. ‘But the support staff around the pitch, they leave nothing to chance.

‘They’ve got hot water bottles, hot water, other ways and means of trying to get some warmth into the lads.

‘We’re a bit more concerned now that, with Covid, there is no glass in the coaches’ boxes. We have to keep ourselves warm!

‘The cold is something the lads are used to playing in. We just hope there’s no windchill to come into the mix.’

Aside from the plummeting mercury, conditions for a couple of hours after the 4.45pm kick-off are expected to be pretty benign.

Although the pitch will be slick from melted snow, courtesy of the undersoil heating, the players will have a chance to get at least some dry ball from time to time.

That, along with the intentions of the visiting team, should make for a more expansive game than we saw at wet and windy Twickenham.

‘Wales are going to cause us a few issues in certain areas, far more than England did based on their game plan,’ Dalziel noted, rather pointedly. ‘In the first 20 minutes last weekend, even before Ireland went down to 14 men, they played some of the best rugby we’ve seen from Wales.

‘You could see that attacking intent they had — so we’re going to be tested by a team that wants to play a bit more.’

Far from resting on the laurels of seeing his pack demolish the England forwards last weekend, Dalziel insists that he and his team ‘ripped up the plan and started again’ almost immediately after the final whistle in London.

Asked if coaches had been tempted to give the group a little kick up the backside just to knock any hint of cockiness out of them, he grinned as he confessed: ‘Yeah, a little bit.

‘But the modern players now are great, especially this group we have. I can’t speak highly enough of them and they really are great to work with.

‘As coaches, we talk often about how lucky we are to have such a close group who are really engaged in driving their own personal game and team game.

‘They were on the computers looking at the game and sending me stuff before we even got into the review. That’s excellent.

‘There is no stone unturned and the boys just want to get better. We know we can get better.

‘What we’re determined to be, as we grow this group, is not just the team who take one step forward and two back.

‘That’s the big leap that this team and this squad needs to take. And that starts by backing up wins, getting the consistency into this Championship.

‘You look through that Welsh pack and they’ve got five Lions and four in the back line, and 12 to 13 from the Grand Slam-winning side from two years ago.

‘It’s an experienced team, so there’s absolutely no complacency from us. Wales come on the back of a good start and both teams will be desperate to get into this rest week with two wins from two. It will be a real battle.

‘The way the players have trained, the fact they’ve got smiles on their faces and their energy levels are recharged, there will be no complacency.

‘They know it’s 80 minutes then a week off to recover. We’ll empty everything out tomorrow.’

BT Murrayfield can be a pretty desolate environment without fans in attendance. A cold and lonely place, even.

Buoyed by the energy of what they did in round one, however, the Scots should have enough firepower to get the job done.

Then it will be all about that race to get inside and hit the showers. And woe betide anyone who uses all the hot water.