Six Nations: Sound of silence will be a result for Scotland at England's fortress

Published on Saturday 12 March 2011 11:13

Scotland travel to our least favourite place in the world today. Fact! Over the years we have taken some beatings in most, if not all, of the major rugby grounds around the world but we have also enjoyed some good days at these grounds as well.

The good days at Twickenham, however, have been few and far between. In over 100 years, Scotland have only ever won four times at the home of English rugby, the last time being in 1983. That means only a handful of today's team were even born when Scotland last tasted victory in London.

It really is a surprising statistic because, over the years, Scotland have had some good teams and England some poor teams but, still, Scotland could only win those four times.

The last decade is proof indeed that home advantage in the Calcutta Cup is of paramount importance. Scotland have won the Cup three times and had a draw once since 2000 but got absolutely thrashed when the games took place at Twickenham. The only game of that decade when England failed to score 40 points at Twickenham was in 2009.

Sport is full of these silly trends that take some explaining. Can it just be down to familiarity of the surroundings or the cheers of the home support? Professional sportsmen pride themselves on being able to block out any of the noise that may go on around a game and concentrate totally on what needs to be done. Without doubt, everyone likes to play at home and, like any Scotsman lucky enough to do it, I loved playing at Murrayfield. But I loved playing at the Millennium Stadium, Stade de France and Landsdown Road as well, because it was great to be able to play in these great stadiums and try to test yourself in an intimidating and hostile environment. There is no sweeter sound than the silence of the home crowd when you are playing away from home.

I have always maintained that the crowd in 2000 had a huge bearing on that match. When we were defending a six-point lead and England were throwing all that they had at us, the crowd were immense and really inspired the team. When you made a tackle, it felt like there were 60,000 Scots making it with you. I would almost guarantee that Scotland would not have won that game in 2000 if we had not been playing at Murrayfield.

Six Nations coverage in full

• 'Hate' has gone out of Calcutta Cup, says England coach Martin Johnson

• Scotland need to rediscover their 'mongrel' fury to avoid being crushed by England

• Records 'there to be broken', says Rory Lawson

• Tom English: 'English jibes must represent an effrontery to the proud Scots'

• Chris Ashton once feared his switch to union was a mistake. His try record proves otherwise

• Sound of silence will be a result for Scotland at England's fortress

• Calcutta cup head to heads

• Italy 22 - 21 France: Nick Mallett's finest hour

• Wales 19 - 13 Ireland: Irish fury over winning try fails to dampen Welsh joy

• Women's Six Nations: Ruth Slaven eager to tackle the English

Twickenham can be quite an intimidating place to play. It is not as noisy as the Millennium Stadium or Stade de France but it is still very noisy when England get on a roll and start running in tries. There is an air of expectancy around Twickenham when England play that they are going to score a load of tries and that can do two things to the atmosphere. If England do score early, the noise can be very loud indeed and a party atmosphere quickly develops. But, if you can keep England out and not let them get early points, the atmosphere can become one of frustration and disappointment.There is no question which is the more intimidating to play in front of, but it is also easy to see which one is so much harder to achieve.

The best international team I played against in my career was England at Twickenham in 2001. This was the team who won the World Cup in 2003 when they were at their peak and they were relentless with their power and the pace they played the game at. They were awesome that day and the crowd fed off them and created this incredible combination of power and pace on the pitch and this wall of sound and jubilation in the stands. They beat us 43-3 and we played pretty well to keep it just to that. England had put 40 points on Wales, almost 50 on France and 80 on Italy and would, undoubtedly, have finished off the Grand Slam against Ireland if foot-and-mouth had not postponed that match until later in the year.

The Scotland team of 2001 defended pretty well, considering we conceded 43 points, and that is exactly what the team of 2011 must do today. We have conceded nine tries so far in the three games we have played and I reckon six of them were soft, with the opposition not doing much to score them. If Scotland defend like this today, then the scoreline could get very messy indeed, because, this England team love to get on a roll and score tries like they did against Italy.

The defence must be watertight and Scotland must play error-free rugby and take any chances that come our way. Simple to write but very difficult to do.

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