Scotland won’t depart from their ambitious gameplan but they’d take five penalties to four if it got a precious NatWest 6 Nations win over France on Sunday, admits Hamish Watson.
The Edinburgh back rower was one of the few who did himself any justice at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff, but he stressed he was part and parcel of the failure to execute Scotland’s plan of attack against the Welsh.
That doesn’t mean that the whole plan is ditched for the French, however.
“We’ve definitely got the right sort of gameplan to take on the best teams in the world, but we just executed it poorly in Cardiff,” said Watson.
“We can’t make as many errors as we did, especially away from home, with this plan. We made a lot of errors in attack and didn’t build phases. But there were too many holes in defence and they cut through us a bit easily, so it was a combination of both.
“The harsh words were said after the game and on Monday and we’ve moved on from that now so that we’re solely focusing on France.
“Wales is done and we’ve got to concentrate on these two home games at BT Murrayfield now. The discussion of what happens way from home we’ll get back to, we’ve got to put (what went wrong in Cardiff) right and focus on these two games just now.”
Watson agreed that Ireland, winning in Paris without a try, showed the kind of bottle the Scots needed to take on what promises to be a big French side.
“Anyone who can grind out that sort of victory away from home by staying in the game, managing to get a late opportunity to win the game, and then taking it, fair play to them,” he said.
“You’d take that in this competition. Obviously we want to score tries and play a good brand of rugby but I think it’s also a winning sport so you’ve got to take the win any way you get it.”
Both teams will feel pressure with a second loss meaning they’re in for a tense battle at the foot of the table, he agreed,
“I think both teams are going to go in the game really needing to win,” he said. “Our fans expect us to win at Murrayfield nowadays, which is great.
“But we’ve got a lot of pressure on us now as well, so we need to go into the game, be positive and try to play the same as we’ve been doing at home for the last year.
“It’s expected to get a bit of a backlash after a loss like that. I don’t think many people were expecting it.
“The fans are probably quite right to be a bit hacked off after a game like that, but no-one’s hurting more than the players, so we need to put it right as well.”
