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'That was huge for us': Scotland's Twickenham victory built belief

By PA
(Photo by Dan Mullan - RFU/The RFU Collection via Getty Images)

Defence coach Steve Tandy believes memories of last year’s Twickenham triumph can help Scotland as they bid to retain the Calcutta Cup at Murrayfield this Saturday.

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The Scots pulled off their first away win over England since 1983 when they won 11-6 last February, albeit there were no supporters present due to the Covid lockdown.

“I think it adds belief and confidence being able to produce those performances away from home,” said Tandy.

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      “Obviously, there was no crowd there but it was still Twickenham against an outstanding England team. That was huge for us.

      “You start to build more belief in your own performances and around your game. It was an unbelievable day but it is just a memory now. We want to create more and we need to put in another huge performance come Saturday.”

      Scotland are optimistic about their prospects for the upcoming Six Nations, but Tandy refused to be drawn into discussion about whether they can win the tournament. Instead he insisted the focus at present must be solely on Saturday’s opener against the Auld Enemy.

      “There is belief within the team,” he said. “Ultimately, I don’t think we can be thinking about winning the tournament when we have a massive challenge in England at the weekend. We are all excited and focusing on our performance.

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      “There are new coaches in England and they are building something. They had a really good autumn, beating Australia, South Africa and Tonga with some massive performances.

      “We are not focusing on anything beyond England. We are enjoying what we are doing, enjoying the way we play the game and come Saturday we just want to put our own performance together.

      “We have to concentrate on ourselves. We know how strong England are. Right across the board they’ve got a good balance to the team and some outstanding individuals. But we’ve got to focus on ourselves and how we play the game.

      “We are at home, it’s going to be an unbelievable crowd so that’s exciting for the boys. It’s about not getting distracted and putting in our own performance.

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      “We have enjoyed some really positive performances over the past couple of seasons and we are keen to build on that.”

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      J
      JW 20 minutes ago
      Competing interests and rotated squads: What the 'player welfare summer' is really telling us

      Nice, that’s good to hear, I was worried for the tackler and it increasing concussions overall.


      My question is still the same, and the important one though. Where the rate of concussions in Fed 2 high? Of course if there where only three concussions, and they were reduced now to one, then there is no need for the new laws etc.


      There are two angles to this discussion, mine above about player welfare, and of course the that which you raise, legal responsibility. More, the legal responsibility we are concerned with is what’s happening now.


      WR don’t really know much about CTE I wouldn’t think, whether it happens from innocuous things like heading a ball, or from small knocks or big knocks that don’t heal. Right now they are ensuring the backside is clean by implementing laws to rule out any possibility they didn’t do enough. So once they understand the problem more they may realise some things are overboard.


      The other legal responsibility is the one you are talking about in France, the past. Did the LNR and WR know about the severity and frequency of CTE in rugby? That is the question in that debate. If they didn’t know then theres nothing they could have done, so there is no worry. Further, what we may have now is a situation where 90% of those court actions might not happen in future thanks to the new framework we already have around HIA and head contact processes. Your English example is only going to be an issue if future players still continue to receive CTE (as that is obviously bad), as it is now, the players have taken on their own responsibility by ignore advice. No doubt some countries, like France and New Zealand, will lower their tackle height, but as long as the union has done an adequate job in advising of the severity of the problem at least the legal shadow over the community game will have gone.

      228 Go to comments
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