Six Nations: Scotland '˜quietly confident' of beating Wales

Scotland captain Greig Laidlaw believes the team can pull off an upset. Picture: SNS

The Scots are still smarting from their 15-9 opening home loss to England, their eighth straight defeat in the tournament, and haven’t won in Cardiff for 14 years or beaten Wales in the last eight attempts. However, Laidlaw believes the team can bounce back and said: “The boys have reacted well and that’s all you can ask. Ultimately, it comes down to what we produce this Saturday. The 15 who are given the honour of a starting jersey will be giving absolutely everything to try and get a positive result.

“I can see already that we are being written off. We will keep that in-house as we are one game into the tournament. We aren’t going to panic and we will stick together as players and coaches.”

The Gloucester scrum-half added: “We understand why we lost at the weekend but we are quietly confident. They went over to Ireland and got a draw which is a tough place to go. But [Scotland backs coach] Jason O’Halloran is a clever coach and we have a couple of things that can cause them problems.”

Laidlaw said that Scotland will wait until nearer the game before considering the question of whether the roof at the Principality Stadium should be closed or not – a move which both teams must agree to.

“If the roof shut it gets a bit sweaty and the ball gets wet after about 30 minutes so we will look at the weather forecast,” said Laidlaw. “If it is going to be terrible weather we will look to shut it because we want to play a positive game as well. We will not be rushed into a decision.”