Young gun Bradbury sets sights on spoiling French Grand Slam
Scotland believe they can meet France’s youthful fire and energy with their own, writes Richard Bath
The narrative is a simple one. Next Sunday a rejuvenated French side, who have already steamrollered England, Italy and Wales, will arrive in Edinburgh seeking to set up a Grand Slam match in Paris. With a new generation of talented young players finally given their head and a new defensive intensity gifted by coaching guru Shaun Edwards,
Les Bleus will start as overwhelming favourites.
Yet the narrative can be misleading. Scotland are also a young side built around the 2016 under-20s team and they too have a new defensive coach in Welshman Steve Tandy, on whose watch a previously porous defence has coughed up just one try in three matches.
More importantly, Scotland have beaten France on their past three visits to Murrayfield.
After getting off the mark in Rome there is, says Magnus Bradbury – who will face France at Murrayfield for the first time – no sense Scotland will start with an inferiority complex.
“We don’t see ourselves as underdogs. We see ourselves as a good team who can compete with anyone,” Bradbury said. “We’re preparing for another fast, physical Test match against a team playing good rugby.”
For flanker Bradbury, playing at home makes this winnable. He has started four games at Murrayfield, but believes the home crowd instills huge self-belief into a Scotland side who struggle on the road.
“In the Six Nations, it’s always special at home,” Bradbury said. “You get off that bus to go to the changing rooms and the senior players tell us take your headphones off and listen. In particular that England game, when we were unfortunate not to get the result, was special. And now we have France at home where we fancy ourselves in front of our home crowd.” While Bradbury has been impressed with the energy brought by France’s youngsters, he knows they have been heavily dependent upon fast starts before fading badly.
“That’s how most teams like to start so it’s something we’re used to,” he said. “It’s how we want to start too – shellshock teams and get early points on the board.”
There are many things about France’s transformation Bradbury wants Scotland to emulate. In particular he wants Scotland’s youngsters to step up in the same spectacular fashion as Romain Ntamack and his fellow tyros. “I’ve been impressed by how young that team is and how successful they’ve been early on, and they can only get better,” he said. “We can’t rely on confidence from the senior players who’ve beaten France in the past; it’s up to us now to do a job.”