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Scotland scrum half Greig Laidlaw has upped the tension ahead of the Calcutta Cup with a pop at England head coach Eddie Jones.
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Jones put the boot in after Scotland’s defeat to Wales, saying they “couldn’t cope with the expectation”, and now Laidlaw has hit back at the criticism.
“It’s hard not to hear these days, Eddie has got a lot to say hasn’t he? He likes to get out there and speak, but ultimately it doesn’t really matter. It is about when you cross the line and get into the middle of the field. Last time I checked Eddie wasn’t playing for England.”
“As a Scotsman there is no better game to play in and we’ll be in front of our own people. We can use our record here that we are starting to put together. But do we need to improve? I think so. That comes from within our camp. It will be an extremely tough match, I have absolutely no doubt about that, but the score is nil, nil at the minute and the game is yet to kick off.”
Laidlaw was keen to stress Scotland’s form at BT Murrayfield.
“We were only beaten in the calendar year last year at home to New Zealand and that was a four point margin and we feel we can beat anybody. I think we’ll have to play better than we did (against France) to beat England. England are a good team, they showed what a great defence they have, so again we might need to look at some kicking options and play smartly when that game rolls around.”
England walloped Scotland 61-21 in last year’s Six Nations and Laidlaw hopes that lessons have been learned.
“Defensively we are going to have to move it up a notch, certainly England will use their experiences after the last time they played us. I am sure they will try and come with a similar game plan, so it is up to us to both stop that and implement our game plan on them.”
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Eddie Jones speaks after England’s 12-6 win over Wales
