For Scotland supporters with long memories — is there another type? — the most dispiriting thing about this Six Nations is that their team’s mediocrity has allowed Matt Williams to lob abuse in their general direction.
Of all the men who have coached Scotland in the professional era, Williams has comfortably the worst win ratio, yet that has not prevented the impeccably-groomed Australian from using his platform on Virgin Media to ridicule the Scots for the way that they perennially talk themselves up and perennially fail to deliver.
“The Scots have just gotta shut up until they start to live their talk,” Williams said after Scotland’s defeat in Cardiff last month, which followed hard on the heels of their somewhat misleading victory over England. “They’re making fools of themselves.”
We decided to go back and see how much self-aggrandizing the Scots had actually done pre-championship, just to see if they truly are delusional. What we discovered was both the head coach Gregor Townsend and captain Stuart Hogg declaring that this was “the best Scotland squad that they had been involved in”.
Now, a sports psychologist might actually congratulate the lads for stating their confidence in their players so publicly. Scotland had, after all, beaten several sides ranked above them in the preceding 12 months: France, England (both on the road) and Australia. As many as seven Scots featured for the British and Irish Lions in the Test series against the Springboks last summer.
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The flipside of that argument is that by talking yourselves up, you become hostages to fortune. You are also testing your players’ mental strength, seeing whether they can measure up to your high and publicly stated expectations.
These Scotland players are not comfortable in that space. Our perception of them is a team that can produce one-off performances against big teams but whose performance levels can then very easily drop against lesser or comparable opponents. A bit like Ireland used to be, in other words.
Maybe Scotland need to revisit the way they used to be, to tap into the identity they had in the amateur era. It was easy to apply positive adjectives to their 1990s sides, the ones that Townsend played in. They were mean, ruthlessly efficient, opportunistic.
The attributes you might choose for the 2022 side are less desirable: the present Scotland are inconsistent, flighty, rudderless. To that list you can now add “porous”. The side that conceded a mere five tries in the entire 2020 championship have leaked nine in their last two games.
If you want Scotland in microcosm, just look at Finn Russell — occasionally capable of brilliance but also capable of crass indiscipline, laziness and irresponsibility. The 29-year-old has now paid for those sins with his place in the starting side. Blair Kinghorn will wear the number 10 jersey on Saturday, despite having only worn it once before at Test level, against Tonga in November.
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Dropping Scotland’s most naturally gifted player is a ballsy, controversial call from Townsend, one that also carries a whiff of desperation. This game carries extra weight given that Ireland are in Scotland’s pool next year, for the second World Cup running (and remember how badly things turned out for the Scots in Yokohama). To select a part-time 10 for a game of this importance is a huge roll of the dice.
After three performances ranging from poor to mediocre, it would be typically Scotland to raise their game tomorrow. They cannot count on Irish complacency, however. There is too much at stake. Ireland are motivated, of course, by the possibility that England might do them a favour in Paris later tomorrow evening. They have convinced themselves that a Triple Crown is worth winning, too, even if that bauble has lost some of its allure over the years.
Then there is the Sexton factor. Ireland’s skipper is probably disappointed that Russell has been benched for this one, as it denies him the opportunity to put one over on a player who was chosen ahead of him for the Lions. He will still be driven to remind Townsend, the Lions attack coach and an influential voice in squad selection, that he should have been brought to South Africa.
This Ireland side are carved very much in the image of their captain — relentless, driven, emotional yet also clinical. How Scotland could do with those qualities.
IRELAND (v Scotland, Aviva Stadium, Saturday 4.45pm):
15. Hugo Keenan (Leinster) 19 caps
14. Mack Hansen (Connacht) 3 caps
13. Garry Ringrose (Leinster) 41 caps
12. Bundee Aki (Connacht) 36 caps
11. James Lowe (Leinster) 11 caps
10. Johnny Sexton (Leinster) 104 caps CAPTAIN
9. Jamison Gibson Park (Leinster) 16 caps
1. Cian Healy (Leinster) 115 caps
2. Dan Sheehan (Leinster) 6 caps
3. Tadhg Furlong (Leinster) 56 caps
4. Tadhg Beirne (Munster/Lansdowne) 29 caps
5. Iain Henderson (Ulster) 67 caps
6. Caelan Doris (Leinster) 16 caps
7. Josh van der Flier (Leinster/UCD) 39 caps
8. Jack Conan (Leinster) 26 caps
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Replacements
16. Rob Herring (Ulster) 25 caps
17. Dave Kilcoyne (Munster) 47 caps
18. Finlay Bealham (Connacht) 22 caps
19. Kieran Treadwell (Ulster) 4 caps
20. Peter O’Mahony (Munster) 83 caps
21. Conor Murray (Munster) 95 caps
22. Joey Carbery (Munster) 31 caps
23. Robbie Henshaw (Leinster) 56 caps
SCOTLAND: Stuart Hogg (Captain); Darcy Graham, Chris Harris, Sam Johnson, Kyle Steyn; Blair Kinghorn, Ali Price; Pierre Schoeman, George Turner, Zander Fagerson; Jonny Gray, Grant Gilchrist; Rory Darge, Hamish Watson, Matt Fagerson. Replacements: Fraser Brown, Allan Dell, WP Nel, Sam Skinner, Josh Bayliss, Ben White, Finn Russell, Mark Bennett
