Hugo Southwell is usually a laid-back sort, but this time there is no mistaking the determination in his voice. The build-up to next week’s match against Italy started as soon as the shattered and dejected players arrived back in the Murrayfield changing room last week after being trounced 40-13 by Ireland, continued through sessions at their Stirling training camp and, with the players thoroughly fresh and rested, will resume on Monday.
This is the game where Scotland have to learn how to win under pressure. With the weight of national expectation on their shoulders, it is a test of mental toughness as much as playing ability. There is some comfort that Southwell is ready to make his own contribution. Few players have had more of a rollercoaster ride through their international apprenticeship or have been required to prove their psychological resilience quite so often.
He is one of only five in the present team who started their Scotland careers with a win (the others are Chris Paterson, Simon Danielli, Sean Lamont and Jason White) after coming on as a replacement against Samoa last summer, but after that victory and his one-man demolition job against Australia in the first summer Test, he has also had his fair share of troughs to handle. But he has dealt with them. The nightmare against South Africa last autumn, for example, produced a storming performance for Edinburgh, his club side, the following week. His big problem at the moment is having to cope with the pressure of the international arena and at the same time learn a new position. Test rugby is hard enough when you know all the angles and threats after testing yourself as hard as you can in one area, but imagine what it must be like if everything is unfamiliar.
Typically, the shift to inside-centre, a position he had played for about 100 minutes in his whole life before he was asked to don the mantle against France, has left Southwell unfazed: “I’m loving it,” he says. “It is not something that came in a hurry, Matt (Williams, the Scotland coach) had spoken to me about it a while ago as a way to get me more involved in the game. It is something I have very much enjoyed.”
Originally Williams spoke about playing Southwell at outside-centre, a position where he had deputised for Ben Hinshelwood, his Scotland colleague, when they were both at Worcester two seasons ago. Then the return to form and fitness of Andy Craig, plus some superb kicking performances from the left-footed Southwell, persuaded the coach to move him even closer to the action, closer to a New Zealand second five-eighth role than a traditional Scottish inside-centre.
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To add to the problems, he does not even know if this is a permanent move or an experiment similar to moving Paterson to stand-off, one that is resisted at club level and then abandoned for internationals. Edinburgh are certainly better off for candidates to fill the centre positions, especially once Tom Philip returns from his knee injury, than for roles in the back three.
“I always knew it was a massive challenge though I don’t think 15 and 12 are as different as they used to be,” Southwell says. “There was a time when the 12 was the crasher-upper, but now it is more of a ball-playing position, and that is something I enjoy.
“I’m comfortable handling the ball but over the next couple of weeks we need to get the balance right between bringing some potency to the midfield and creating a base for the forwards. We created the forward platform against France but did not really get ball we could shift wide.
“We did the wide bit against Ireland, but did not set a platform for the forwards. We need to combine those two things, get the best of both. That’s the challenge.”
The France game is something of a bitter-sweet memory. His first outing at inside-centre, a solid defensive performance that stifled the threat of Damien Traille and Brian Liebenberg, only for it all to go wrong in the final three minutes when his attempted clearance was charged down, fell perfectly for the French, and Traille scored the winning try to clinch it 16-9.
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“Obviously I was gutted,” Southwell says. “After the amount of effort we had put in, to lose it like that was hard to take, but I was not blaming myself, everyone told me not to worry about it, it could have happened to anyone. All the same, you do feel a sense of guilt. You have to put it behind you, regroup and get on with the next game.
“It felt really bad at the time, but with another match a week later you can’t dwell on it too long. I was as quick as I thought I could be. Maybe I should have taken one less step, but that is easy to say afterwards, then the kick deflected straight back up in the air when it could have gone anywhere. It could have gone into touch, it was just one of those things that does happen, just unfortunate that it came at that time in that game.
Hopefully that is it, it won’t happen like that again.”
If that was a personal nightmare, the Ireland game was a team horror. Southwell did set Scotland on their way with his early sprint for a try after Paterson’s break. “We went into the game saying we did not want to perform as we had against South Africa, our previous game at Murrayfield; we felt we owed the supporters something for that,” he says. “I really don’t know what happened. The first 20 minutes we played some really, really good rugby. I don’t know, maybe that gave us some false hope, maybe it was too good to be true. Maybe people started to feel that we had cracked it with that showing and the performance in France and relaxed, which is something that we cannot do. If we are not 100% focused we cannot compete with the top sides.
“We are so down on confidence that being ahead was almost a shock to us. As soon as the mistakes started to creep in we began to panic, and it went from bad to worse. We have proved we are capable of playing good rugby but we have to produce it for 80 minutes. Even in France it was only for 75 minutes, and that was enough to cost us the game. We have shown glimpses of what we can do but we have to sustain it.”
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In common with most of the squad, Southwell says he firmly believes the team is on the verge of turning the corner and he is fervent in his defence of Williams. “I honestly believe, all the team believe, that Matt is doing a good job,” he says.
“You can see from the way we played in France that we are improving. We did not play well against Ireland but that was nothing to do with the coaches, it was totally the fault of us, the players.
“We had 31 turnovers against Ireland, eight against France. You can’t compete with an international side with that number of turnovers, but that is nothing to do with the coaches, it is the individuals on the field.”
He is correct in claiming that the wide defence has improved a lot — three of the Irish tries started with mauls, one came from a turnover at the base of a scrum and only the last, when Scotland were chasing a lost cause, saw the three-quarters exposed.
Southwell is also right in saying that part of the problem is that the Scots players don’t know how to win tight games, particularly against higher-ranked teams. At least that should not be an issue against Italy, ranked a place behind Scotland.
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“We have to mentally tune in and get ready to face Italy,” says Southwell. “Everyone is totally committed to the way we play, the gameplan, but it is a question of getting it right. We know it is a massive game for Italy, too. Like us they started with a good performance and let it slip in their second match.
“They have been saying all along that they wanted to get an away win and are targeting this as their best chance. The game is as massive for them as it is for us. We simply have got to win.”