Expert Witness: Scotland backed to beat England as Nathan Hines previews Six Nations showdown

As momentum builds to one of the most intriguing Six Nations in recent years, our Expert Witness is former Scotland and Lions lock, Nathan Hines.

Coaching continuity

In Eddie Jones‘ six-year reign as England head coach, Scotland have proven to be his most formidable opponent, beating his team two times and drawing once. With the English squad hampered by injury and with a partisan Murrayfield crowd powering Scottish emotion, this Six Nations match sees the home team as marginal favourites. Hines believes that Gregor Townsend’s men have a great opportunity to start the tournament hot.

“I’m a big admirer of what Gregor has achieved in his time as Scotland coach,” he confirmed.

“Vern Cotter left a legacy of a well-organised and stable squad and with the addition of new players, many of them coming through the system with Glasgow Warriors, Gregor has built from within, using his connectivity of local rugby and his player knowledge to maintain continuity.

“One of the benefits of a relatively small playing pool is the amount of contact the national coaches will have with the players. You can maintain training ideas from club to country far more easily, you can allow natural partnerships to develop within units that in some cases can go back as far as age group rugby and you have the ability to manage those players more closely. Players also realise that they have that natural pathway, but that they need to work hard and maximise their talent to be competitive against the best.

“If you compare this to Eddie Jones, he has a much broader playing pool and far more depth to choose from, but on the flip side, far less ability to influence club training and playing style than perhaps Gregor does,” noted Hines.

Brand positioning

“What is pleasing to see is the brand of rugby has developed from Vern Cotter’s focus on making sure the basics were in place to embrace the running and broken field components that has always characterised Scottish rugby. In the last season, we’ve also seen a degree of strategy and surety bolted on, possibly driven by Finn Russell‘s improvement in decision making and his understanding with Stuart Hogg.

“I am a great admirer of Finn and, as he’s matured as both player and person, he’s taken his game from 50/50 returns in terms of some of his more daring outcomes a few years back to a 70/30 or even 80/20 returns and that change in his consistency has really been mirrored through the entire side.

“Gregor’s management of Finn comes from his empathy and understanding of how Russell wants to play. A couple of years back, I think Gregor could see the issues he was facing and realised that he needed to let Finn make the mistakes himself and learn from them. Gregor was a similarly ambitious character in his style and that allows him to empathise with the challenges faced,” explained Hines.

“When people ask me about the likely outcome this weekend, I simply turn round and say ’10s’! In other words, whichever 10 dominates will see his team win. We have two of the best around on Saturday in Finn and Marcus Smith and it’s somewhat ironic that if you were picking your British and Irish Lions side six months after the tour you’d be arguing over which of Marcus or Finn started and I don’t think the others would feature in discussion.

“Marcus has had an amazing season. I believe he reached a turning point when Paul Gustard left Quins as coach, as he was very focused on defence coaching. When Gussy left, the shackles appeared to come off Smith as the spotlight came off the defensive roles and he was given trust to run the show, something he’s responded to brilliantly. He welcomes the opportunity to embrace stress and challenge himself and he’s been the man that’s steering everything against everyone in terms of the big Harlequins wins.

He continued: “Whilst I do believe that the packs will largely cancel each other out and achieve parity, the other delightful head to head is Tom Curry versus Hamish Watson, two fantastic opensides, both incredibly physical. I think that ‘Mish’ has become a lot more selective this season post the Lions tour in when he commits himself but equally, he’s not shy of a jackal. Tom is in cracking form as evidenced by his displays in November and their battle for floor and breakdown superiority will be another focal point of the match. You only have to see how South Africa were challenged at the breakdown during the summer by both players to see just how effective they are.”

Power of Scotland

“It’s a pivotal game for both teams and a great opportunity to start hot into the tournament. It’s a tough campaign for both sides as they have three aways, including a trip to France in Paris, which is always a difficult ask, but the result won’t define the season’s fortunes of either team – you have to be realistic and understand a win is just one step closer to where you want to be, a loss just means you’ve stood still.

“With the crowds coming back, there’s going to be a fantastic atmosphere in the stadium and it will be as noisy and colourful as it used to be. I’ve never been one to believe in the ‘crowd is worth seven points’ argument – if you’ve got your head down and you’re focused, you simply don’t hear them and it makes little difference but having that hubbub does add to your enjoyment on the pitch,” Hines explained.

“For the Scots, it’s a big turnaround as up until only a month ago, a crowd looked unlikely, so expect them to make their voices heard and expect the Scottish team to want to respond to their support. I reckon it will be a fast and exciting game, one that will be tight and one that will be decided on a few slim margins, but I have a good feeling about this and I’m calling Scotland by one score – three to seven points.”

We thank Nathan for his time.

READ MORE: Six Nations video preview with former England number eight Nick Easter

Nathan Hines speaks to Planet Rugby about Six Nations

Planet Rugby’s James While speaks to former Scotland lock Nathan Hines.