Scotland play down Stuart Hogg’s England comments

MATT Taylor says that Scotland players should not waste their time worrying about whether they are respected or not by their English counterparts, and should focus instead on their own sense of self-worth as they look to overturn the odds on Saturday evening by securing a first win at Twickenham since 1983.
Sean Maitland (above) and Stuart McInally joined the Scotland squad at training yesterday. Picture: SNSSean Maitland (above) and Stuart McInally joined the Scotland squad at training yesterday. Picture: SNS
Sean Maitland (above) and Stuart McInally joined the Scotland squad at training yesterday. Picture: SNS

Full-back Stuart Hogg grabbed a few headlines yesterday morning when he was reported as saying that the Scottish team are not taken seriously south of the border.

“The English are a fantastic team but they’re pretty much all about themselves at times,” said Hogg. “They don’t really respect us and we find that pretty frustrating. There will be a certain number of people that do respect us but, no matter how good our performance is, on the whole they don’t.”

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

However, assistant coach Taylor believes that anyone hoping that England will underestimate the threat posed by Scotland is destined to be disappointed.

“There is a good article on the England website at the moment saying how much they respect us. Under Stuart Lancaster they are quite a humble group and they will be taking us seriously,” he insisted.

The defence guru went on to explain why he wants Scotland to look inward rather than outward as they seek to motivate themselves for the monumental challenge that lies ahead.

“I think Test match rugby is about putting your hand up and making sure you represent your country and yourself well, and I think against Italy we didn’t do that as well as we needed to. The intensity, the desire, the edge wasn’t there,” he said.

“Sometimes sport is a strange thing. You expect them to be up for every game, but sometimes that doesn’t occur for whatever reason, and I don’t think the standard that we’ve set ourselves as a group was there. Any team on their day, if you don’t front up at 100 per cent then you’re going to get beaten and, unfortunately, that’s what happened.

“But we are going to regroup. We met back together this [Monday] morning and had a review of the game. We have other reviews this [Monday] afternoon so we will go into more depth, and we will want to focus on doing a job on England.

“The guys are highly motivated to go down there and put on a better showing. They understand that they represent every Scottish person who comes to the games and supports them. I know we will have a good week at training before going down there and put our best foot
forward.

“We’ve just got to focus on our own game and execute it as well as we can. We need to turn up with the right mindset in terms of our aggression and workrate, and, if we do those things, we can do well against anyone.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“Having said that, if we are slightly off then we know anyone can beat us, so we need to be really focused and committed.”

One area where Taylor recognised the Scots will have to make significant improvement is with their commitment to stopping England’s driving maul. That was a department where they struggled badly against Italy and there is no doubt Saturday’s opponents will have taken heed.

“If you don’t get the attitude and the technique part of stopping the lineout drive right then you are in trouble. England have a good maul attack and they will have a lot of moves off the back of it. Sometimes they will maul just for a try, sometimes for a certain breakout. Sometimes they go short, sometimes they go wide. A big part of their game comes from their mauls and we need to be able to deal with it.

“It will take a huge commitment to get in and dismantle it – to get ourselves straight and square to drive through it. Maybe against Italy we were a bit off with our technique, and with the aggression, so Jonathan Humphreys and Vern [Cotter] will do a good job this week sorting that out.

“We just want to win, and that goes for the coaches, the players and the fans. I think we are headed in the right direction – our first two games showed that, even though we didn’t get the results. It might have been a step backward last weekend, but that’s what happens in sport – two steps forward and one step back. All we can do is bounce back and go down there to put on a performance that we can be proud of, and that the nation can be proud of.

“Sometimes you don’t always get the win but, if you put in a performance that everyone is proud of, then you can hold your head up high, so that’s what we’ll be looking to do.”

FOLLOW US

SCOTSMAN TABLET AND MOBILE APPS