The message coming out of the England camp in the buildup to one of the most hotly anticipated Calcutta Cup matches in recent memory is clear. Scotland may be unbeaten at home in the Six Nations since Eddie Jones’s first match in charge of England back in 2016 but the hostile welcome that awaits at Murrayfield holds no fear for the defending champions.
The Scotland prop Simon Berghan may have stoked the fires last weekend with the old truism that “everyone hates England” but as Ben Te’o puts it, “going up to Scotland, I wouldn’t be able to tell you the history. Last year we were talking about going to the Millennium Stadium, this year Murrayfield, next year it will be somewhere else.”
The 31-year-old former NRL player says he has yet to experience a rugby union atmosphere that rivals Australia’s State of Origin rugby league matches – “you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all” – while the defence coach, Paul Gustard, reveals the fear factor can be found far closer to home. “I am sat three feet away from Eddie Jones. The tension never goes,” said Gustard. “It is the sword of Damocles hanging over my head.”
Specifically, Gustard was explaining the sense of dread that comes with a poor England defensive performance and how Jones will be sure to let him know about it, but going on recent ones there has been no reason for the sword to fall. Against Wales England’s tackle-success percentage was worse than their opponents, as was their penalty count, but they shipped only six points and have conceded fewer in the Six Nations only once in the past 15 years.
As Gustard says, statistics will only tell you so much. “Nothing is ever perfect but there’s a feeling with defence and it can’t always be gauged by linebreaks conceded or tries conceded, gainline success – it’s all part of it but there is something about knowing when you stand alongside the team and you just say: ‘Boys, we’re on this today. I don’t care what comes our way, we’ve got their number.’
“That sensation and feeling doesn’t happen every week but when it does, you know it. That’s the feeling that we had [against Wales] and we want it more. Rugby is not just tactical or technical, there is an emotional side that you cannot divorce from the tactical side. All the time you are trying to feed them emotionally, and feed them that desire to defend. In the first five minutes, you know. You can gauge whether preparation has been right in that first contact.”
And what about when it goes wrong, as Gustard frankly admits was the case in the first Test of the 2016 summer tour of Australia, where England were almost blown away in the first 15 minutes, conceding two tries before recovering to clinch a thrilling victory. “[Eddie] makes it clear. I am not daft – I know if we are not defending well,” said Gustard. “The first Test in Australia in 2016, I look at our preparation, I got things wrong. Ultimately it was my fault as I prepared the team wrongly. When the look came across [from Eddie] I realised.”
Gustard adds that in that match he “went too much down one route and saw my arse pretty fast”, essentially that he had planned for only one way that Australia might attack. As such, he will not be spending too much time focusing on Scotland’s gung-ho style, or as Jones recently described it somewhat unflatteringly, playing “from side to side”.
“We have belief in our defence like we have belief in our attack, that we can cause teams problems,” Gustard said. “We have enough firepower in our team in terms of attacking strengths. We’ve got good collective unity in terms of our defence. We are well equipped to take on any team in the world and get the result we want.
“They’ve got a couple of styles of attack and they can always go back to a more traditional Scottish attack. We just want to be sure if they want to play out the back and go wide, or try and attack the back field, play around the corner, or play pick-and-go, that we’re prepared for everything.”