Wiliams Looking For Patience
“We’ve got some really exciting young players but we’ve got to build our game around those experienced players and bring these young guys through,” – Scotland coach Matt Williams.
Scotland enter this season’s Royal Bank of Scotland Six Nations
with a new
coach in Australian Matt Williams and a new captain in Chris Paterson.
But whether they can combine to conjure up a recipe that will
improve upon
Scotland’s two wins and fourth place in last season’s tournament
remains to be
seen.
Scotland struggled to reach the World Cup quarter-finals and have
since
lost five players to international retirement including former
captain and
scrum-half Bryan Redpath, fly-half Gregor Townsend and wing Kenny
Logan.
But Williams, who took over from Ian McGeechan, is heartened by
the young
players coming through the ranks.
“We’ve got some really exciting young players – Nikki Walker
(wing), Graeme
Morrison (centre) and Chris Cusiter (scrum-half).
“The trick is that you don’t want to throw a young man in and
burn him so
he loses his confidence but he has to be blooded.”
Williams pleaded for patience on their behalf, saying his team
should not
be judged on results alone.
“We need to make sure we put a process in place so that these young guys can succeed. Success for them might not necessarily be always scoring more points than the opposition.
“We always want to win but we want these young guys to focus on processes,”
Williams, the former coach of Irish province Leinster, added.
“We’ve got a very experienced forward pack that can cope with any international team. We’ve got to build our game around those guys and bring these young guys through,” explained Williams, of a pack where
back-row Simon
Taylor has been consistently impressive.
And in a sign of his distinctive approach to the job, Williams
said
stand-off Paterson is set to share the captaincy with experienced
hooker
Gordon Bulloch.
Scotland open their campaign away to Wales on
Saturday, February 14th, a
match both sides will believe they can win.
But six days later comes the match all Scottish rugby fans relish
more than
any other when world champions England arrive at Murrayfield for the
latest
instalment of rugby union’s oldest international fixture which dates
back to
1871.
Already some supporters are trying to draw parallels between now
and 1967,
when Scotland defeated then world soccer champions England who had
won the
World Cup the year before.
That match took place at Wembley but Scotland have the advantage
of facing
England – who could be without injured fly-half Jonny Wilkinson – at
Murrayfield.
“The great days are when you take on great teams and beat
them… that’s
what you remember for the rest of your life,” added Williams.
If they do just that against England, any mutterings about
Williams, the
first foreigner to coach Scotland, will soon disappear.