Eddie Jones might as well be speaking to thin air when he’s jabbing at the Scots, says Nathan Hines.
The former Scotland lock and now coach, not averse to a bit of chippiness himself in his playing days, doesn’t want to get involved in on-field or off-field verbal sparring, believing it an unnecessary and ineffective distraction.
“What (Jones) says doesn’t make any difference to me. What use it is it really?” asked Hines. “He’s got his own special style of coaching, he did well with Japan.
“He doesn’t mind trying stuff. He’s been around a long time and he’s got a lot of experience. Saying that, we don’t know for sure what he has planned for this game so we just have to worry about what we are going to do.
“If we are worrying about Eddie Jones and what England are going to do then we will be chasing shadows before it has started.”
In addition, there will be no blatant attempt to light some of England’s shorter fuses, not even their much-suspended new captain, Dylan Hartley.
“Why would you want to wind him up? It’s a waste of energy, you’re far better to concentrate on your own game and make more of an effort on what you do rather than devote your attention to someone else,” he said.
“It probably still happens on the pitch, some players I played against could do that and still play well but some players can’t.
“Australia were quite good in my day, and so were the South Africans. Victor [Matfield] was good, but with big Bakkies Botha standing next to him, who wouldn’t be?”
Scotland will instead be working on building what was good at the World Cup and eradicating what they didn’t like.
“I don’t think there’s anything different in our squad,” he said. “We’re trying to continue to improve what we’ve built and what we’ve got.
“We’re not going to try and re-invent the hweel, you’re not going to do that in a week’s prep, so you work with what you’ve already got and build on that. There’s a little bit of detail that Richie Gray’s brought in but it’s all part of the work of improving.”
Hines and Gray, the new breakdown consultant, were a second row partnership at Gala in the old days and have rekindled their old friendship.
“He’s a very upbeat character and he’s very technically minded. I hadn’t seen him in a while, especially in a coaching context but he’s very good, he’s very good at what he tries to put across.
“Richie’s never been a negative guy so he brings and lot of positivity, which is good especially in camp.”
The last time they were together on the Murrayfield pitch? The 1999 Scottish Cup Final against Kelso, when Gray made the catch and Hines the drive that set up Chris Paterson’s winning try.
“He was able to take me through the whole move, and even remembered the call,” said Hines. “I didn’t even remember I carried the ball for the drive.
“He knows his stuff and has added a number of new details. It’s been great for him to come in.”