{"id":423323,"date":"2026-02-13T09:07:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T09:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/423323\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T09:07:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T09:07:11","slug":"england-should-be-telling-themselves-in-private-well-batter-scotland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/423323\/","title":{"rendered":"England should be telling themselves in private: we\u2019ll batter Scotland"},"content":{"rendered":"

In public, the instruction will have been for England to be humble, respectful and measured, but on the training field and in the team room over the past week, it should have been very different. Behind closed doors, they should have been talking themselves up and stressing how Scotland simply should not be able to live with them on Saturday.<\/p>\n

England have a bit of a mental hurdle to overcome with Scotland, not having won at Murrayfield since 2020 and having lost four of the past five encounters with them overall, before scraping home 16-15 at Twickenham last year. But now they have built up a convincing body of work that should inspire great confidence. They have won 12 Tests on the trot and thrashed Wales last weekend.<\/p>\n

This is international sport. You must have that inner belief. The coaches do not want complacency, and they will still keep you on edge, but they want you to believe.<\/p>\n

It was something that Warren Gatland brought in with Wales. He changed the mindset completely. In private he endorsed extreme confidence. For instance, in 2018, before the game against Scotland, he told the players: \u201cWe\u2019ll batter them.\u201d And they did, winning 34-7. I really liked that.<\/p>\n

We would be playing a big game and on the Tuesday, before the team had been announced, he would lay out the shirts from 1 to 15 and say, \u201cRight, starting team for Saturday, off you go and get your shirts.\u201d Everybody would look at each other and be a little unsure what to do, but guess who always moved first. The scrum half Mike Phillips, of course. He\u2019d say, \u201cCome on, lads, who\u2019s starting with me?\u201d He would play up to that reputation, but Gatland loved it.<\/p>\n

Before the Super Saturday in 2015, when we needed to beat Italy by a significant margin in the first game of the day, Gatland asked us: \u201cWhat are you going to do in this game?\u201d Nobody spoke initially. \u201cCome on, what are you going to do?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Ireland<\/p>\n

Gatland instilled extreme belief in Warburton\u2019s Wales side<\/p>\n

GETTY<\/p>\n

I put my hand up and said, \u201cI\u2019ll get three turnovers for you, Gats.\u201d Alun Wyn Jones put his hand up and said what he was going to do, and all of a sudden everyone was putting their hands up and saying something that they were going to own. Gatland held us to it and I\u2019m pretty sure we all did what we said we would do in our 61-20 win. It\u2019s not arrogance. He just wanted us to believe in ourselves.<\/p>\n

England need to be doing the same now. I\u2019ve been coached by Steve Borthwick and he is one of the best coaches I have had. I\u2019m sure he will be saying those things.<\/p>\n

I think he will, though, have been disappointed with the lack of ruthlessness in the second half against Wales<\/a>. That is the sort of thing that can happen in a club game, but in a big international match you want to keep the foot on the throat and destroy a side. You want to send out a message to the rest of the Six Nations.<\/p>\n

\"England<\/p>\n

Borthwick knows that England, despite the 48-7 dismantling of Wales, must raise their game<\/p>\n

DAN MULLAN\/THE RFU\/GETTY<\/p>\n

As an international, you are always aware that the opposition are watching, so the England players will have known that France were in their team hotel watching that performance and England should have been thinking that they wanted to make them panic, make them think that they do not want to play against them. Players really do think like that. I know I did.<\/p>\n

Borthwick will be asking his players: \u201cWhat are our super-strengths?\u201d There were two of them that Wales could not handle last weekend: first, the kicking game, where George Ford kicked long and was always patient; second, their gainline dominance, their carrying ability that, time and time again, Wales could not stop from first phase. <\/p>\n

\"George<\/p>\n

Ford\u2019s territorial kicking and strategic thinking could make the difference at Murrayfield<\/p>\n

DAVID ROGERS\/GETTY<\/p>\n

The numbers from last year\u2019s match against Scotland are interesting \u2014 the fly half Fin Smith kicked 241 metres, whereas Ford kicked more than 1,000 metres against Wales. That is why Borthwick is gravitating towards Ford as his preferred No10. He knows how tactically astute Ford is when it comes to that territorial kicking game.<\/p>\n

Last year against Scotland, England had 86 carries and only four entries into Scotland\u2019s 22. They just didn\u2019t assert themselves from a carrying perspective. They still managed to sneak the win, but they can be so much better if they get those two things right, just as they did against Wales.<\/p>\n

Italy deserved to beat Scotland last weekend. It was one of those games in which the playbook goes out of the window, but I always find it a little weird that when it rains, players panic and ask: \u201cWhat are we going to do?\u201d We should be used to it. We play in the rain all the time. Yes, the rain in Rome was extreme, but, while Scotland\u2019s lineout capitulated, Italy still managed to do pretty well there. It was not all about the weather.<\/p>\n

\"Scotland<\/p>\n

Scotland have beaten England four times in their past five Six Nations meetings<\/p>\n

REX<\/p>\n

When conditions are like that, yes, the half backs have to be smart tactically, but the key thing is that the forwards roll up their sleeves and are dominant. Scotland did not necessarily do that, and England will have been watching and will know that they have got an edge in that department. Scotland didn\u2019t front up, and I hope they take that personally, and do turn up at Murrayfield.<\/p>\n

I was interested to read Courtney Lawes\u2019s column<\/a> in The Times about Scotland\u2019s obsession with beating England alone and I totally agree that it can stifle you as a team.<\/p>\n

With Wales, it used to annoy me so much when people said that as long as we beat England, it would be a good season. What a defeatist mindset. As Wales captain, I never put England on a pedestal. I always said that if we wanted to win the Six Nations, we had to beat everyone.<\/p>\n

So expect Scotland to be fired up. Murrayfield is a special place to play. It always used to remind me of watching the Five Nations and Six Nations as a kid. <\/p>\n

As a player, it is one of the best bus rides to a game. You go down this little lane with all the Scots drinking in the pub on the corner, then the bagpipes greet you at the ground and there are fans hanging off the stands as you walk in.<\/p>\n

With Wales when we were good, we used to love going up there because, without wishing to sound rude or disrespectful, we used to think: \u201cWe can\u2019t wait to shut this lot up in the first ten minutes. Let\u2019s bring some physicality that they can\u2019t live with.\u201d<\/p>\n

England must do the same.<\/p>\n

Scotland v England<\/p>\n

Guinness Six Nations
Murrayfield
Saturday, 4.40pm
TV ITV1 <\/p>\n

The Ruck Podcast: LiveDon\u2019t miss tough tacklers Courtney Lawes and Serge Betsen on March 9 as they compare notes on France v England and the biggest moments of this year\u2019s Six Nations at Twickenham Stoop. Book tickets here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In public, the instruction will have been for England to be humble, respectful and measured, but on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423324,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-423323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}