Six Nations: ‘Forget Wales bogeyman Warren Gatland… this must be Scotland’s time’

There can scarcely be a time when Warren Gatland has been more concerned about his perfect run against Scotland coming to an end.

Wales are in Edinburgh for Saturday’s Six Nations Test and so, too, is that flaky old friend of Scotland fans – hope.

Hope walks the streets, like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. Hope says that Scotland with its playmakers and its ruthlessness and its belligerence and its squad depth have turned the corner and are ready to bring an end to this nonsense against Gatland’s team. Hope says that Scotland’s attack and defence are at such a joyously high level now that an uncertain Wales will be put away.

We know the thing about hope, though. Hope giveth and hope taketh away.

In 2006, Scotland had hope of going two from two in the championship for the first time ever but Wales (and a Scott Murray red card) killed it stone dead. They had hope of going two for two again in 2021, but Wales (and a Zander Fagerson red card) removed it. In 2022, they packed up their hope and headed for Cardiff for another shot at two from two, but Wales (and a wounding Finn Russell yellow card) delivered another tale of woe.

That game last year was rugby’s equivalent of a slap across the face with a wet kipper. According to the movie website Rotten Tomatoes, the scariest thing that has ever appeared on a television screen is The Exorcist, which just goes to show you that the Rotten Tomatoes people scare pretty easily.

In terms of true gore, nothing – and we mean nothing – in that film could hold a candle to Scotland’s performance against Wales in Cardiff last year. Even now, a year on, it comes with a health warning. Scotland look to have moved on since then, but the memory is still there, lurking in the corner of the mind.

Somebody bursting through a door with an axe has nothing on the brutality at the Principality last year, a championship that began, as this championship has, with a win against England before lurching into chaos and the sight of Scotland foostering their way through 20 pointless phases at the end of another coulda-shoulda day.

Contrast the Scottish plodders then and the Scottish thoroughbreds of last weekend at Twickenham. Four tries on the back of 29% territory. That speaks to the ruthless, almost freakish, efficiency of what they did with ball in hand.

An average of 4.1 points scored for every visit to England’s 22 in a sport where anything over three points per visit is deemed excellent. Last year, Scotland’s return in their five games was 3.4, 1.8, 2.4, 3.7 and 0.6. More than 200 tackles made and yet only nine penalties given away, three below their game average from a year ago, which also happened to be the highest in the tournament.

‘If not now, when, for Townsend’s men?’

Establishing an aura takes a while. Ireland’s is around a relentless and suffocating attack led by Johnny Sexton. France’s aura is around their immense power and the sniping brilliance of Antoine Dupont. Wales used to have one typified by the mad intensity of Alun Wyn Jones and an attitude of never-say-die.

Scotland have a bit to go – and many more games to win – before they carry that presence with them, but Twickenham was an illustration of what they are capable of, even off limited amounts of ball.

In just a few short months, there appears to have been seismic change in Gregor Townsend’s team. They scored four blistering tries last weekend without the services of Darcy Graham, but had the excellent Kyle Steyn to fill in. They were missing two stellar opensides in Hamish Watson and Rory Darge and yet found a thumpingly good replacement in Luke Crosbie.

Last season’s Six Nations finished with Chris Harris and Sam Johnson in the midfield, now it’s the lethal duo of Huw Jones and Sione Tuipulotu, a lovely combination of vision and explosiveness that offers a world of promise.

Ali Price was the scrum-half then and is not even in the 23 now. There’s a new centre partnership, a new scrum-half, a new lock (or newish given it’s the reborn Richie Gray we’re talking about), a new captain and a new open-side. Cohesion is the watchword in Test rugby these days. You’d expect Townsend to stick to as close to the same 15 and the same 23 as he can in the lead-up to the World Cup.

None of Watson, Darge, Scott Cummings, Stuart McInally, Sam Skinner, Rory Sutherland, Zander Fagerson, Cam Redpath, Graham, Price or Johnson were in the 23 that beat England last Saturday. Fitness allowing, you could pick an entirely different 15 to the team that started at Twickenham and it would be more than decent.

So this is Scotland’s time. It has to be. A skilful attack that is capable of conjuring tries from anywhere on the pitch, a backline with playmakers, imagination, daring and ferociously dangerous runners.

Scotland’s forwards, skilful and thunderous, put in a monumental shift against England. They were still attacking and defending with gusto in the dying minutes. Matt Fagerson is the relatively unsung member of that group. Others got the limelight, but Fagerson’s performance was astonishingly good, as complete a performance from a Scotland number eight in a generation.

There are more reasons to believe this time than any other time on Townsend’s watch, but it’s still only one win. Nobody in Scotland with any grasp on two decades of history will be getting carried away just yet. It will mean precisely nothing if they don’t make it two on Saturday.

The Test will have had an added relevance for Stuart Hogg. If you count his two Tests for the Lions in the summer of 2021 – and why wouldn’t you – Hogg will play his 100th international match on Saturday. The fact that it’s Gatland’s Wales he’ll be playing it against only adds to the compelling nature of what’s about to go down at Murrayfield.

He made his debut against Gatland’s Wales, had one of his worst rugby experiences against Gatland’s Wales – a red card and a 50-point horseing in 2014 – and has lost more games to Gatland’s Wales than anybody else in this Scotland squad. In their time, Ross Ford lost eight and John Barclay seven. Hogg doesn’t want to advance another step towards that particular dungeon.

The other week Barclay poised a simple but pertinent question on the BBC. Talking of Scotland’s myriad strengths he wondered aloud about their prospects of achieving something in this Six Nations,. “If not now, when?” he asked..

Yes. Townsend and his players are the only ones who can answer that, continuing on Saturday with the arrival of the bogeyman and his beleaguered army.