The Max Evans Column

In his weekly column, Scotland wing Max Evans speaks of the desire to please the Scottish public and his first visit to Castres.

In the second instalment of his weekly column, Scotland wing Max Evans speaks of the desire to please the Scottish public and his first visit to Castres.

It's been another busy week for me. Six Nations weekends are always intense and on Tuesday I jetted over to France to finalise a few formalities at Castres Olympique, for whom I'll be playing next season.

An exciting afternoon at Murrayfield

There are a number of positives we can take out of the game against Ireland. Most of all, we were able to provide the crowd with an exciting finish. Although we didn't get the result we were hoping for, at least we were able to give the public their money's worth.

It's such a special experience to play at Murrayfield. Hearing the crowd sing the anthem really makes you feel connected with the nation.

We were all pretty demoralised after the Wales game but the general feeling in the camp is that we put on a much more respectable performance on Sunday.

Brian O'Driscoll's speech at the post match function summed it up though: Although he didn't feel his team had an amazing game, in years to come you'll see the 'W' in their results column, and as a professional rugby player that's all that counts. We'll take a win over a good performance any day.

We fought back strongly and had an opportunity to win in the closing stages so we'll try to build on that momentum. Credit to Ireland though for how well they defended at the end.

The tries we conceded were pretty soft, especially Jamie Heaslip's first try. We just can't allow that sort of thing to happen at this level and we'll certainly be working during the week on cutting out those missed tackles. It's about technique and it's something we can work on at the training ground.

Preparation has already started for the England game which I'll talk about more next week.

A game of inches at Twickenham

In Rome, Wales did well to take their chances when they were presented. I mentioned last week how difficult it is to win in Italy these days, so I'm sure Wales are very pleased to get the result they did. The Italians find themselves in a similar situation to us at the moment. They've had two narrow losses and one forgettable performance, so they'll be looking to bounce back.

As a rugby fan, the game at Twickenham was very exciting to watch. Le Crunch really lived up to its name with both sides gunning for a Grand Slam (although England shouldn't count their chickens just yet!).

It was a clear example that rugby is a game of inches. At the end the better team probably came out on top as England made better use of those inches when they got them.

I thought France were a little unlucky not to get their usual bounce of the ball sometimes – but that's why that ball is shaped the way it is!

I was almost willing the French to get a bit of luck at times. Aurélien Rougerie must feel devastated not to have scored. It seemed like he thought he had less time than he did and he just accelerated a little too early and couldn't hang onto what could have been vital try. An inch here, a split second there…that's rugby!

As I mentioned last week, Sébastien Chabal didn't live up to some of the hype that surrounds him. I'll be interested to see who France pick in their back row next week.

Castres

On Tuesday, my dad and I hopped over to the South of France for my medical and a press engagement at Castres. Travelling through the airport at Toulouse brought back memories of probably my favourite game ever: Upsetting Toulouse in their back garden with Glasgow in the 2009 Heineken Cup.

From the moment I arrived in Castres I felt really welcomed and almost overwhelmed by their hospitality. It was great to meet the players and in typical rugby fashion the banter was flying thick and fast right from the start – especially with Scott Murray and Chris Masoe.

I was very impressed with the facilities at the club and even though Castres is a small town, it looks like there's a lot more life to it than I expected, certainly a lot more atmosphere than just 'cyber driving' around using Google Street View!

I had lunch with the coaches, Laurent Travers and Laurent Labit, who are both former players (Travers won the European Cup with Brive in 1997 and Labit won the French Championship with Castres in 1993). I feel I'll be able to share a similar relationship with them as I've had with Sean Lineen in Glasgow. They're both relatively young guys and seem open to new input. They made it clear that they are eager to tap into my own experience and use whatever I can contribute, so I'm really excited about working with them.

That said, I'll definitely have to crack on and improve my French! Learning the lingo is a challenge to look forward to.

Of course there'll also be plenty of new challenges on the pitch in a new tournament. There'll be some familiar faces like Lee Byrne at Clermont, James Hook at Perpignan or Gavin Henson at Toulon but having to analyse new players and teams and adapt my own game is what makes the new experience exciting.

Speaking of meeting new players, Masoe seems like a great lad. He reckons he's not too bad around a golf course too, so he's my first target!

Until next week, cheers

Max