The new rules that Hamish Watson will have to negotiate “look a bit weird” but Scotland and Edinburgh’s premier back rower thinks on balance they’ll be even better for him.
Watson is cautious about what will happen in the restart game against Glasgow at BT Murrayfield on Saturday, but he thinks the interpretations he’s seen from other leagues could be “great for people like me”.
“I have watched a bit of Premiership over the weekend and a bit of Super Rugby and it looks a bit weird – if you get your hands on the ball for a split second they are blowing it up,” he said.
“I think it’s going to be a question of speed to the breakdown and beating the other team’s guys to the ball, when people get in it’s hard to shift them and they’re getting rewarded very quickly. They cut down on the 45-degree angle (defensive clearouts) as well to try and protect the jackallers.
“We have to get used to it and the refs will have to get used to it too, but for a seven it looks like it will produce a few more opportunities for us.”
In attack, it works for Watson as well because he’s not the kind to go to the ground with ball in hand too easily.
“You can’t do that big move after tackle now, so I think we’re going to have to be careful with that,” he said. “There were a few penalties for that in our hit-out game.
“For my game personally, it shouldn’t make a difference as long as you are on your feet, but you can’t risk getting half-tackled and getting back on your feet know, like you’d get away with before.”
Watson has been tipped as a potential Lion next summer in South Africa but that’s not even near his “to do” list.
“If you have a great year you may be involved, but who knows? We might not be travelling next year as it shows how fragile it all is,” he said. “I have to concentrate on Edinburgh first, then Scotland.
“You can never rest on your laurels here. We have some great sevens coming through, Rory Darge and Conor Boyle played amazing at under-20. You can never think the six, seven, eight jersey is ever yours.
“I still have to concentrate on getting in the Edinburgh team. We are all friends but even when I wasn’t starting I was gunning for someone’s position.
“You have to be striving to improve. If you ever think you can’t improve or are the finished article then you are going to have a short career. Having competition behind and in front of you allows you to get better, and always have goals to avoid complacency.”
No fans on Saturday might be strange, but Watson approaches every game the same whether it’s in front of 6000 or 60,000.
“I think the warm-up will be the weirdest thing, going out and seeing no-one there,” he said. “But after the whistle blows, we’ve all been doing this long enough to know you’ve got to flick that switch whether there’s 5000 fans there, or 7000, or 67,000 playing for Scotland.
“When you play for Scotland you don’t automatically up your game because there’s 60,000 more people there. You get your adrenalin rush from the fans, yes, but mostly from that competitive edge. You’ve got to be able to do that yourself.”
