Scotland captain Greig Laidlaw has expressed that his Scotland side are not doubting their own performances and will get back on track, following their defeat at home to England in the first round of this year’s Six Nations tournament.
Vern Cotter’s side have not performed as well as their island rivals in recent tournaments, with Ireland having won the last two Six Nations Championships and Wales performing well at the Rugby World Cup whilst England look to recover from a truly disappointing World Cup campaign.
Speaking to ESPN, scrum-half Laidlaw does believe that Scotland are beginning to catch up with their surrounding nations.
It’s a difficult question to answer, it’s going to come down to us progressing in this tournament.
I can see already that [the media] are writing us off, which we will just keep in-house. We’re not going to panic. We’re one game into the tournament and we believe we will be fine.
Scotland’s performance against England was not one to savour, with scruffy scrum holding and poor defending on their five-metre line causing England to gain advantage in play. Laidlaw continued to say that:
No-one feels it more than the players. Has the disappointment left the group? No. We were just a little bit short on Saturday. The first week of the Six Nations is always tough.
For Scotland to win games we need to be at our best. We were when we won games during the World Cup.
There is still confidence in the group and we believe we can do so much better.
Laidlaw’s side will face Wales in Cardiff next, as they encounter their first away match of this year’s campaign.
This next game is absolutely massive for us. There’s no doubt Cardiff is a tough place to play rugby but it’s a great place to play. We need to enjoy it and get stuck in.
We’ll have to improve. We conceded two soft tries on Saturday. Our defence was solid apart from that. We also coughed up a few balls going forward. If we can tighten up a few little things, it’ll go a long way.
