Scotland lock Jim Hamilton bemoaned the “same old story” of Scotland’s failings in Dublin but promised a huge performance in this weekend’s Calcutta Cup game.
The Scots have a brief six days to recover and reflect on the 28-6 defeat to Ireland at the Aviva Stadium before they meet England, also hurting after they were denied a win in Paris in the final minutes on Saturday night of the opening RBS 6 Nations weekend.
However, the experienced lock knows only too well that it’s a common problem for Scotland to have to bounce back from disappointing results.
“That lack of consistency, for the whole time I’ve been involved with Scotland we’ve been looking to address that,” he said.
“But ultimately we need to be scoring tries because you can’t win a test match in Ireland scoring six points.
“It’s the same old story, we’ve got to get back on the wagon.
“Both ourselves and England will be desperate for the win, but it’s different circumstances; I thought England were extremely unlucky not to win against France whereas we were well beaten.
“England are a formidable team, we saw that in the autumn and barring this result they’re the form team in the Six Nations along with Wales,” said Hamilton.
“It’s a cruel sport and with Scotland over the last few years it has been tough. But we’re well capable of running out a huge performance next week.”
Hamilton said the Scots physically matched the Irish in the first half but didn’t take their chances while Ireland did.
“I sound like a broken record player, but it’s what it is,” he said.
“We were in their 22 a lot, but when they were there, like a lot of the top teams, they took their chances, they smell a little bit of blood and they take it.
“That’s something the backs will need to sort out and also the forwards collectively because it wasn’t pretty at some times.”
Head coach Scott Johnson pinpointed “naivety” of some of his inexperienced players but vowed that perseverance would pay dividends for long-suffering Scottish fans.
“There was a naivety about us today, we had more ball in the opposition 22 than they did but we either turn the ball over or get punished,” he said.
“It’s frustrating because there were elements that were really good and those areas where we need some consistency. For ten minutes we looked terrific and we need to convert things. The coach’s box took a bit of a pounding today.”
Johnson added that his team were “doing the hard bit well” it was simply finishing it off.
“We have inexperience in our backline, they’re still growing as players. I’d much rather we did the hard bits well and I think today we showed enough, even with those inexperienced players, that they can compete at this level.
“With perseverance and a little time in the saddle, it’ll grow and it’ll be great, and we’re just going to have to be patient.”
Johnson acknowledged that the problem at the tackle area was still there after all the focus on that issue for a year.
“It’s that release valve, we create pressure and can’t convert it into points,” he continued.
“Even in the second half we did some terrific stuff and started to put pressure on them, but at the tackle area we turn the ball over again.
“We won’t run away from the England game. We might have to go to a dark place and bring some torches.”
Scotland’s main injury worry from the match is Sean Maitland, who left after half an hour when he collided with Dave Kearney going for a high ball and landed heavily.
“He’s woken up and found there’s pain in other areas,” said Johnson.
“He came off with concussion and then we found he had other issues.”