Fraser Brown: Six Nations headspace is vital, Netflix crews didn't put me off and why I fell asleep on team bus

There’s nothing quite like the Six Nations so the squad’s preparation – from this week’s training camp right through to kick-off – must be spot on

Scotland have been in camp at the sports performance centre at Oriam this week where the serious preparation has begun for their Six Nations opener against Wales a week on Saturday.

Every year is different but in a way it’s also always the same. There are obviously some new players in the squad and there might be a new coach as well but it also feels very familiar. The build-up to the Six Nations always the same feel every year, the same format. You go in and meet everyone on the Sunday night, there’s a lot of energy, the boys are buzzing and you get to see some people you haven’t seen in a while. Then, you usually have a prep meeting, a chance to say ‘Look, this is what we’re going to do. This is what we did in the last campaign and this is going to be our theme for this Six Nations.’

The Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday at Oriam are not too heavy. The sessions are usually quite light. There are a lot of meetings and we go over key principles for defence, attack and set-piece, often in mini-groups, so everyone coming in from different environments are reacquainted with them and we’re all back on the same page. It’s an intro into what you’re going to try to do and it’s good because you get two weeks to prepare for that first game.

The Scotland team disembark the team bus before a Guinness Six Nations match between Scotland and Wales at Murrayfield last year.

On Sunday the squad will head to Spain, just like they did last year, and that was something I really enjoyed. I wouldn't go as far to say it’s a warm weather training camp but it’s about 16-17 degrees which is quite nice when you’re used to training in Scotland in January and February. It’s a different environment. There are not a lot of people around. We’re based in a sports resort and there was also a football team there last year, I think it was Borussia Dortmund.

The training centre is a 15-minute walk from the hotel and the training is just the same as we do here but you’ve got a little bit more time to do some recovery and chill out. You’re there to focus on the rugby but there’s also an opportunity to mix with everyone a little bit more. There’s one coffee shop, which is actually the golf club, so you can go there for a bite to eat and some of the guys might have a round of golf. It’s nice to get away from all the hub-bub that goes on around the Six Nations and it allows you to relax and focus your mind on the task in hand.

We had the Netflix crew following us around last year, recording material for Six Nations: Full Contact which dropped this week. The first day or two felt a bit odd but we’ve got our own videographers in 24/7 anyway so it didn’t feel too different. And I’m not going to lie, they spent more time with the backs than the forwards which was a shock!

Some boys would be mic’d up every day, for meetings and training sessions, and you had to be a little bit more careful in what you said but generally it was fine. It was like white noise – it’s there but you don’t really notice it, especially for those of us who have been around the Scotland team for a while. One of the skills you have to learn in that environment is the ability to tune these things out because there will always be something going on, whether it’s film crews, drones flying over training or whatever. You need to concentrate on your job.

Scotland take on Wales at the Principality Stadium a week on Saturday.

The Netflix people were there during the autumn Tests, doing a trial run, so when they came for the Six Nations everyone already knew the cameramen and the sound operators and had built up a bit of a relationship with them. We knew how they worked. It wasn’t particularly intrusive. They were just there, almost part of the squad.

Scotland will fly from Spain straight into Cardiff next Thursday and the intensity really ramps up in the week of the Test match.

The team run is the final session before the match and I prefer when it’s in the morning because you have the rest of the day to recover. You can go out for a coffee, meet some friends, jump in the pool, get a massage. When the team run is in the afternoon you can’t do that and your whole morning feels like you’re at a departure gate waiting to go somewhere but you’re not yet allowed to leave.

It’s left up to the individual as to how they want to spend the night before the match. When the team run’s in the morning, as soon as you get back to the hotel you’re free to do what you like. Dinner is usually on from around 6.30 and then there’s supper later. Sometimes, if there’s an under-20s game on, the coaches will go to that. Most of the boys will just take it easy, watch a bit of TV, play cards or be on their laptops doing a bit of last-minute analysis. It’s quite chilled but the more nervous will tend to keep themselves to themselves. There will be a gathering in the team room to watch some rugby if there’s a match on.

Scotland halfbacks Finn Russell and Ali Price train during the Six Nations as a Netflix cameraman films the session. (Photo by David Gibson/Fotosport/Shutterstock)

I think it’s really important that people are given as much time as possible on that day to get their head space right because the Six Nations is like nothing else. You can play in all the autumn Tests and they’re big matches – you could be up against South Africa or New Zealand – but they’re one-off games.

The Six Nations is different. It’s the biggest annual rugby event in the world. In the northern hemisphere there’s nothing bigger than playing in the Six Nations.

The minute the World Cup finished people were talking about the Six Nations. Owen Farrell announces he’s stepping down from England and immediately it’s about the Six Nations; someone plays well in the first two rounds of the European Cup and it’s projected on to the Six Nations; Netflix starts trailing its new series and the Six Nations is all over social media. It’s a massive competition and you have to give players enough room and time to absorb and process it so they’re good to go on match-day.

I’ve never had a problem sleeping on the night before a match. I tend to stay up quite late, watch things on my iPad. Breakfast is on from eight in the morning so even if you go to bed at 12 and you’re up half past eight, nine o’clock you are still getting eight-and-a-half to nine hours sleep which is ample for me.

And with those later kick-offs – Scotland’s opening game against Wales this year is at 4.45pm – the chances are you can have another hour’s sleep after breakfast, or a nap around lunchtime.

So there’s plenty time to sleep! It seems quite lazy but your body knows what it needs and it’s almost like it goes into shutdown before a Test.

I always get really, really tired on the team bus and fall asleep on the way to the ground – even on a 10-minute trip to Murrayfield. I’d be yawning my head off in the changing room and then I’d go and do the warm-up and all of a sudden, when I’ve come back in, I’d have this massive rush of adrenaline. Your body is getting itself ready for this huge battle.

I would imagine it could be a little disconcerting for coaches to see you yawning in the changing room but everyone is different – some players bang their heads off the wall before a match to get amped up.

I’m not a big fan of a long warm-up. I get what I need out of it but I don’t want to expend too much energy because I know that in the position I play I’m likely to have more than a couple of collisions within 90 seconds of the match starting. And that is the biggest wake-up call you could imagine.