We can eliminate errors to frighten English
Grigg is refusing to accept Scots as Twickenham cannon fodder
SCOTLAND centre Nick Grigg has denied there is any need to panic in World Cup year after his side’s third Six Nations defeat out of four. In last year’s tournament Scotland won three matches, beating England and France at home and Italy away.
This year their only success has been the first-day victory over Italy. That has been followed by a home defeat to Ireland, an away defeat to France and now the loss to Wales.
Their final game is against England at Twickenham where Scotland hasn’t won since 1983, but Grigg isn’t ready to let the burden of history weigh down their chances of ending the tournament on a high.
‘I feel like we’ll bring a lot out of the game today leading into England,’ said Grigg. ‘We know we’re not going to win the overall competition now, but that competitiveness in the team is still going to be there and we’re going to try our best to win that game.
‘All you can do is build on your mistakes and work hard. We’ve got a good pre-season leading into the World Cup, a good structure. We’re going away and we’ll build a good culture in the team again.
‘We do have a fair few injuries but I’m sure boys will come back and rip into that pre-season and we’ll get a bit more cohesion heading into the World Cup.’ Grigg was one of Scotland’s better
performers on the day and he won the penalty that set up the field position that led to Darcy Graham’s try. He also worked hard and performed well against Jonathan Davies, who is one of the best midfield players in the tournament.
‘I like a challenge and a test and I’ve played against Jonathan before in the Pro14 so I know what he brings to the game,’ he said. ‘He’s a strong carrier and good tackler, strong over ball. I just took on the challenge and gave it my best shot and thought I played pretty well against him.
‘I’m really disappointed obviously with the result because I felt that we put in a good effort and a good performance. Towards the end of the game, the last 20 minutes, we were down in their 22 four or five times, we had those set-pieces and you’re thinking to yourself: “We’ve got the front foot here. If we score that’s the game”. But it didn’t work out that way and it’s frustrating.
‘The Wales defence was pretty outstanding but we had the opportunities there to score, but it just didn’t click, we didn’t get the bounce of the ball or we didn’t use an option we should have. It’s just one of those things. ‘You can try and control it as much as you can, but it didn’t go our way those four or five times we had those opportunities. I’m sure the boys will be disappointed and frustrated with the result, but the coaching staff and we personally are proud of the performance in terms of the effort we put in.’
Victorious Wales coach Warren Gatland paid tribute to the Scots for the way they rallied in the second half. Gregor Townsend’s team had been lucky to go in at the break just 15-6 down, such had been the dominance of the Welsh.
In the second half Scotland played much better and put five points on the board through Graham’s try. The only Welsh points of the second period came in the final minute through a Gareth Anscombe penalty which gave them a 18-11 victory.
‘We were pretty comfortable in the first half but in fairness to Scotland they came out and put us under a lot of pressure in the second,’ said Gatland. ‘We’ve lost the second half 5-3 but we’ve shown real character as there were a couple of moments towards the end when Scotland were attacking, but we drove them
back and kept them out.’
The boys are proud of the performance in terms of effort that we put in