Six Nations: We must keep our cool in heat of Roman colosseum

It is hard to know where to start to be honest. We never thought it would come down to another battle for the wooden spoon. When I think back to the start of the championship and the excitement I felt then, and the genuine belief that we could win every game, it seems like another world.

I knew we would be good enough to beat England and we were, had we played anything like the rugby we are capable of, and while I knew Wales in Cardiff and then France were tough fixtures, the style of rugby we had worked hard on I felt would really stretch them and open them up. While there was a lot of talk as the tournament got underway over when we’d score tries within the squad we had a strong belief that they would come. That was one thing we got right.

I do feel that, for whatever reason, Scotland tend to be a confidence-based team and we probably lost confidence after England. The positive that came through those early games was the quality of the young guys stepping up and by now you’d want them to have tasted victory in a Scotland jersey, because that can provide a huge boost to young lads in their first games.

The way that David Denton, Lee Jones, Matt Scott, Duncan Weir and Ed Kalman have come in and stood up to the challenge of international rugby, with Greig Laidlaw also starting at ten for the first time and Ross Rennie making his first Six Nations start and picking up a ‘Man of the Match’ award, just shows the strength in depth that is developing.

Even guys like Jon Welsh and Rob Harley, who are with us this week as the extra men, have been really encouraging, and I’ve been really impressed by them this week. They have probably got one of the toughest jobs in the squad, travelling and training but getting no reward at the end of it.

This week we had something a bit different with an ex-SAS motivator Floyd Woodrow coming in to speak to us, which stirred a bit of media interest. It was interesting. It was not as new to me because my dad was in the Special Forces (founded of course by Scot David Stirling) for ten years, although I couldn’t tell you what he did because it was not something he ever discussed, obviously. So I’ve seen and heard quite a lot of guys involved with the SAS in my time, and there’s no doubt there is a correlation sometimes between being part of a unit in a regiment and being part of a rugby team under pressure to perform at the highest level. But we don’t risk our lives, and so any comparison does not go very far.

We might be under pressure, but we are playing sport, putting our bodies on the line in a rugby context, yes, but at the end of the day it should be fun.

My dad has been good for me as an inspirational figure and we have a lot of deep thinkers in the squad right now and I think they responded well to Floyd’s involvement. But, in reality, all that matters is what we do on the field, and we have one last chance in Rome today to get it right.

Interestingly, Floyd picked up on something we have been talking about since the World Cup and before, the need for more players to be ruthless with each other. I think that is something that has improved a lot and we do tend to speak our minds more now than maybe happened in the past, and sometimes it is getting the balance right between tearing into each other and motivating and encouraging each other. There’s a time for both.

The ruthlessness we’ve been lacking has been the ability to go in for the kill when you have a team where you want them. We were in good positions against England, France, Wales and even Ireland at half-time but we did not finish the chances we created, and let them all come back at us.

This weekend we have to do that. Italy are always very physical, passionate and are a heavy bunch of forwards. They have a better lineout this year and they have good players over the ball, Alessandro Zanni and Sergio Parisse, in particular. Every time we play them it is close and this will be the same, but if we can get good ball in first phase and dominate the breakdown we will do well. We have worked extremely well in the scrum this week and Chunk [Allan Jacobsen] has always gone well against Castro [Martin Castrogiovanni]. I know Castro well from my Leicester days and I’m not sure how fit he will be having had some time out injured.

He is a great character, a real showman, passionate and great for the fans, but he’s also got a short fuse and I’m sure Chunk will get into him today.

We had a run at the stadium and that has lifted the guys again. The Olympic Stadium is a really inspiring place. We hear it is going to be close to, if not a sell-out and in that place that will be phenomenal. The atmosphere will be very intense, very passionate and noisy, and I expect Greig will be getting a lot of abuse when he is kicking. But he is very cool and that does not faze him. We have to be strong, and draw inspiration from that. We need to make sure we are a tight unit from the minute we get to the stadium and keep it that way right until the final whistle. It will be what I imagine a colosseum to have been like, certainly a level up from the Aviva last week, and we have to rise to that.

I want to finish by thanking everyone for reading the column and supporting us. I’d have liked to have been talking more about victories and great high points in games, but that is not the way it has been. But we have it in our power to finish strongly and start to turn the corner this weekend. It’s tough for us all, especially Andy and the coaches, because they’ve given us all the tools to perform, have improved us as a team and we need to repay that.

We will be desperate men out there. We have to win for our sanity. No ifs and buts.