Scotland’s adversity in the 2015 RBS 6 Nations will build the “culture and identity” required to form a winning team in future, head coach Vern Cotter stressed.
As they prepare to attempt to avoid the wooden spoon and whitewash against an Ireland side gunning for a second successive championship, Cotter wants a reward for his “humble, hard-working and hurting” group of young players but is still eyes fixed on the long game.
“You can’t go anywhere unless there’s a strong sense of identity and culture within the group, and I think this group has that,” he said.
“They’re humble, hard-working and they’re hurting at the moment so we would like to see a positive result that would validate some of the hard work that’s gone in. But you can only keep pushing away and keep believing, and I think they do.”
Cotter realises that Scotland are behind in their preparations to all the other nations his own decision to stay at Clermont Auvergne for another season after agreeing to come to Murrayfield was a big factor in that but thinks they’re catching up.
“There are times when we almost play against ourselves, we’re our own worst enemies,” he continued.
“Ireland are a good example, they’ve been together a long time, they’ve had success, and they’ve got every facet of the game covered.
“For us there has been a real shift, and a lot of it comes from experience and a lot of it comes from just making good decisions and executing properly. And that’s going to be part of the process of moving the group forward.”
One of the problem areas against England was a good example of that, he continued.
“England helped to identify a number of things we need to work on, things in our control defensively, but I thought the players did very well, having lost Alex Dunbar on the Thursday,” said the coach of the defensive failings at Twickenham.
“England have a very good attack, probably one of the best I’ve looked at, but scramble defence is always a good indicator of culture and team spirit and the guys did well to get out of some unfortunate situations and turn them into positives.”
By virtue of results, the 6 Nations has become much more of an experimental exercise than Cotter would have liked, but he thinks that can still be a positive.
“We were told early on in the Six Nations that we were never going to be part of it, so we’re using this to find out about ourselves, who we’ve got around us in these tough times,” he went on.
And I think that’s been a worthwhile exercise. We don’t have an excuse culture. We’re not going to sit there and say it was the referee or whatever. We’re going to say: what can we change and get better at?”
Cotter gets back a player one suspects he’s wanted back in the team all spring in Adam Ashe, the dynamic and industrious young Glasgow Warriors back rower who played so well in the autumn but suffered a nagging neck injury.
Only after playing at No 8 in the autumn, he replaces Rob Harley at blindside after David Denton’s comeback performance at Twickenham won some deserved credit.
The other change is in the front row where Al Dickinson has been unable to train fully this week and is therefore saved for the bench, with Ryan Grant making his first start since the final game of last year’s 6 Nations.
“I’m always a firm believer in keeping developing what you believe in, being totally honest in the way you analyse where you’re going and what you’d like to achieve,” he said.
“And if you clearly have an objective in your mind of where you’d like to get to, you’ll get there.
“There have been some limiting things which stopped us getting to where we would like to have been. Some of them have been our own doing, some of them haven’t.
“But there’s a strong sense of identity and solidarity within the side, they want to do well and keep improving.”
Team: Stuart Hogg (Glasgow Warriors); Dougie Fife (Edinburgh Rugby), Mark Bennett (Glasgow Warriors), Matt Scott (Edinburgh Rugby), Tommy Seymour (Glasgow Warriors) ; Finn Russell (Glasgow Warriors), Greig Laidlaw (Gloucester, capt); Ryan Grant (Glasgow Warriors), Ross Ford 9Edinburgh Rugby), Euan Murray (Glasgow Warriors); Jonny Gray (Glasgow Warriors), Jim Hamilton (Saracens); Adam Ashe (Glasgow Warriors), Blair Cowan (London Irish), David Denton (Edinburgh Rugby).
Replacements: Fraser Brown (Glasgow Warriors), Alasdair Dickinson (Edinburgh Rugby), Geoff Cross (London Irish), Tim Swinson, Robert Harley (both Glasgow Warriors), Sam Hidalgo-Clyne (Edinburgh Rugby), Grieg Tonks, Tim Visser (both Edinburgh Rugby).