Calendar An icon of a desk calendar. Cancel An icon of a circle with a diagonal line across. Caret An icon of a block arrow pointing to the right. Email An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of the Facebook "f" mark. Google An icon of the Google "G" mark. Linked In An icon of the Linked In "in" mark. Logout An icon representing logout. Profile An icon that resembles human head and shoulders. Telephone An icon of a traditional telephone receiver. Tick An icon of a tick mark. Is Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes. Is Not Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes with a diagonal line through it. Pause Icon A two-lined pause icon for stopping interactions. Quote Mark A opening quote mark. Quote Mark A closing quote mark. Arrow An icon of an arrow. Folder An icon of a paper folder. Breaking An icon of an exclamation mark on a circular background. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Caret An icon of a caret arrow. Clock An icon of a clock face. Close An icon of the an X shape. Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Ellipsis An icon of 3 horizontal dots. Envelope An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Home An icon of a house. Instagram An icon of the Instagram logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. Magnifying Glass An icon of a magnifying glass. Search Icon A magnifying glass icon that is used to represent the function of searching. Menu An icon of 3 horizontal lines. Hamburger Menu Icon An icon used to represent a collapsed menu. Next An icon of an arrow pointing to the right. Notice An explanation mark centred inside a circle. Previous An icon of an arrow pointing to the left. Rating An icon of a star. Tag An icon of a tag. Twitter An icon of the Twitter logo. Video Camera An icon of a video camera shape. Speech Bubble Icon A icon displaying a speech bubble WhatsApp An icon of the WhatsApp logo. Information An icon of an information logo. Plus A mathematical 'plus' symbol. Duration An icon indicating Time. Success Tick An icon of a green tick. Success Tick Timeout An icon of a greyed out success tick. Loading Spinner An icon of a loading spinner. Facebook Messenger An icon of the facebook messenger app logo. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Facebook Messenger An icon of the Twitter app logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. WhatsApp Messenger An icon of the Whatsapp messenger app logo. Email An icon of an mail envelope. Copy link A decentered black square over a white square.

Scotland v Australia: Denton says Scots’ focus is on the breakdown

David Denton feels the force of a Fourie du Preez tackle in Sunday's game against South Africa.
David Denton feels the force of a Fourie du Preez tackle in Sunday's game against South Africa.

Defiant David Denton is convinced Scotland will bounce back from their bashing from the Boks but only if they stop having nervous breakdowns.

The Edinburgh powerhouse reckons his side must get their act together when it comes to competing for the loose ball and protecting possession.

And he warned of another walloping at the hands of Australia on Saturday if they don’t show a huge improvement at Murrayfield on Saturday.

Breakaway forward Denton declared: “The solution is simple we have to fix our breakdown.

“During the summer we were really good against South Africa on their own turf because we got that part of our game right.

“Our movement at the breakdown was a second and a half faster than theirs and that is a lot.

“Essentially, in modern international rugby the only way to get on to the front foot is to win the breakdowns,” he added.

“If you are too slow, you will get hit back so this week there will be a massive focus on that before we take on Australia.”

Denton said: “If we want to get forward and score against them, we must be efficient in this department.

“You only have to look at their guy Michael Hooper. He has been performing brilliantly. Not only will we have to get it right, we will have to nullify him.

“The most frustrating aspect of our breakdown play is that it changes from game to game. What we need is some consistency.”

Denton added: “We can do all these things we have shown we can play rugby in that manner. You need a tough mindset and one of the positives we took from the Springboks match was that we didn’t fold.

“In that situation the floodgates could have opened, but we showed a lot of character in the second half and held them back for a long time.

“To score no points in a test is very annoying because we are a better team than that. It would be great to get the ball out to our wingers this weekend then we can get some tries.

“There is no question they are a good side and we have to be at our best to beat them.

“We are more than capable of that. We showed in South Africa that we can match their brutality, their physicality.