Cotter aims to put fire in Scots after Boks beating
SOUTH AFRICA 34 SCOTLAND 16
SCOTLAND head coach Vern Cotter is intent on driving up confidence in his squad as he seeks answers to why the team have started slowly in every World Cup game so far.
Against both Japan and the USA, the games hung in the balance at half-time and despite setting out to keep a rein on the Springboks in Newcastle last night, the Scots were battered almost into submission in the first half-hour and went inside 20-3 down.
They revived in the second half with more of the threatening rugby they have been developing under Cotter, shown in a 14-13 second-half scoreline, but it was not enough to haul back a dominant Springbok side.
Cotter was of a mind to look more at his side than the quality of South Africa in seeking to answer why Scotland struggled to get going in the first 40 minutes.
‘It is a valid question,’ he said, ‘and we will certainly be finding out why we don’t seem to have the confidence to start well. We need to develop that confidence to put our game in place ruthlessly at the start. It’s something that will be talked about this week.
‘I think the score was a pretty fair reflection of the game. They dominated the contact area and we struggled to move forward — and when you don’t move forward in this game it becomes difficult, as you don’t push behind the gain-line.
‘I thought that if we stayed close long enough they’d become unsettled, so getting within seven points (in the second half), we just needed to keep
our hands on the ball, keep pressure on trying to get over the gain-line and do the simple game well.
‘But a couple of times we didn’t exit (our half) as well as we’d have liked and they remained in our half, and points were scored against us, but it was good that we got back within seven points.
‘That’s one of those things we need to develop — a bit more self-belief and focus on what we can achieve when we get everything pointing in the right direction.’
As for the task that faces his side in their final pool game against a Samoa team now with no chance of qualifying, he acknowledged: ‘Now it is the crunch game and, fortunately, we have seven days to prepare for it. So we’ll be able to put in a couple of days’ training and iron out some of the things that occurred in the game, things we didn’t control as well as we would have liked.
‘It was a physical encounter and we’ll also be able to regenerate because we know Samoa will be physical as well, but with seven days to prepare we’ll be able to put some shape into our game.
‘I’m unsure if that (defeat to Japan) really matters. I think the Samoans will want to finish the tournament well and we’d expect them to. I can get our manager to send a couple of crates of beer to try to convince them (to take it easy) but I don’t think that will happen.
‘They will want to finish well and we’re certainly preparing ourselves for a fired-up Samoan team.’
Asked about the injury suffered by Stuart Hogg, Cotter admitted that he was hopeful it was just cramp but he would not know the full extent of the damage until today at the earliest.
‘We feel it is just a tight back and cramp, but we’ll have to wait 24 hours and have a look,’ said Cotter. ‘When I say there’s nothing, something always pops up later, so I’ll wait until tomorrow and let everyone know.’