McGeechan preaches 'positive' fear factor

If Ian McGeechan has his way – and in a quietly persuasive manner, the most successful of all Lions coaches generally makes people see things from his perspective – the 22 Scottish players who confront England at Murrayfield in this weekend's Calcutta Cup match will do so with parched throats, beads of cold sweat on their foreheads and a knot of dread deep in the pits of their stomachs. In McGeechan's experience, winning rugby often has its roots in the fear of losing.

"The fear factor? Yes, I think it does have a positive effect on performance," he agreed as he contemplated the first challenge of a new Six Nations campaign – a potential humdinger of a set-to with those whiter-than-white-shirted blighters from the English shires. "We've certainly witnessed it in our games against the All Blacks over the last decade or so. New Zealand still pose the ultimate threat to a team's psychological and physical well-being: they can destroy you, in a dozen different ways. We've played some of our best rugby against them, both in Scotland and over there. Why? Because we know what will happen if we fail to raise our game, almost to levels beyond our own imagining."

So, tomorrow night's schedule will presumably begin with a nice team supper at a plush Edinburgh hotel, followed by a double bill of Seven and Silence of the Lambs. Or even some old footage of Wade Dooley, the Lancashire police constable, perforating Doddie Weir's eardrum with a sly right-hander in 1992, or Rob Wainwright being punched into the Outer Hebrides by an unidentified English fist in 1996. That should give the kilted brethren a suitably powerful dose of the heebie-geebies and have them shaking from head to toe.

England-Scotland matches are not played out on a vicarage lawn with cucumber sandwiches for afters; they are stern, mean-minded contests, entirely representative of the spirit in which the two nations have traditionally done sporting business with each other. McGeechan has been through enough of these shindigs – he played in half a dozen between 1973 and 1979 – to know how many beans make five on Calcutta Cup day, to the extent that he has twice denied the red rose army a Grand Slam just when they thought it was theirs for the grasping. And for that reason, he does not fear this England team in the way he would like his players to fear them.

"They have a consistency about them now that makes them one of the best two international sides in the world," McGeechan admitted. "In fact, you could argue that over the last 12 months, they have performed better than anyone. But if England have evolved, we have evolved too. We finished a poor second at Twickenham last season [43-3 on the scoreboard and six-zip on the try-count, to be precise] but I think this game will be very different, simply because both sides have moved on. To play England effectively, you need to get hands on the ball and not give possession away, because they'll keep it for ever if you do. I believe we are more capable of doing that now than we were 11 months ago."

Of course, McGeechan is working at a disadvantage, not least numerically. Clive Woodward, his opposite number, can draw from a dozen Premiership teams, all of which have academies in place. Scotland's professional set-up consists of two teams: Glasgow, who are fairly decent on a good day, and Edinburgh, who have good days about as often as Woodward negotiates a Six Nations tournament without upsetting the organisers. Of the 60-odd full-timers based north of Hadrian's Wall, maybe 20 have what it takes to cut it at Test level.

But some of those are serious operators: McGeechan considers Simon Taylor, the young Edinburgh No 8 who shone briefly but brightly on last summer's Lions tour of Australia, to be a priceless discovery (an opinion shared by the England coach Andy Robinson, incidentally), and also believes that the tough-nut Glasgow forward Jason White will hit the heights, either at lock or on the blind-side flank. And besides, a third professional club is beginning to take shape in the Borders, based around the wonderful rugby communities of Hawick, Kelso and Melrose – communities stripped bare when the Murrayfield hierarchy decided, in their less-than-infinite wisdom, that big-city rugby was the only rugby with a future.

"I think we all agree now that moving from four district teams down to two was a huge mistake," McGeechan admitted. "Over the last few months, we have located what we feel is the middle ground and embarked on a policy we are confident will work for us. I would expect the third team to make an impact within 12 months of coming on stream at the start of next season – Tony Gilbert (the former Otago and All Black coach appointed to head up the operation) has already had a huge effect locally – and that will give us a base of 90 professional players. We can do something with those sorts of numbers. Australia select from 90, and they are the world champions.

"We are beginning to build Team Scotland now – a structure with a competitive top end and all the mod cons, like academies and player support, underneath. It has been difficult politically, but the important thing was to win the argument through discussion and debate, not by hitting everyone over the head with a sledgehammer. I'm pleased to say we've achieved that."

Did Jim Telfer, the famously irascible sergeant-major to McGeechan's mild-mannered professor on the 1997 Lions tour and now Scotland's director of rugby, really abandon the heavy weaponry and whisper sweet nothings instead? "You'd be surprised how diplomatic Jim can be when it suits him," grinned the coach.

A new sense of optimism up north, then? "I'd say we're getting somewhere," McGeechan said. "Our convincing victory over a strong Ireland side last September was no fluke – it was good rugby, played well – and while some other results in the autumn were not what we were looking for, you have to remember that we lost our middle five to injury around that time. If you can't put your best back-row and half-back combinations in the field, you tend to struggle.

"This Scotland side is in a developmental phase – there are changes in personnel and changes in approach. There again, international rugby is always about the now, not about the later; whether you have five caps or 50 caps, you have to perform every time. We finished third in last year's Six Nations, which was probably beyond the expectations of most people. Expectations will be higher as a result, so the pressure to perform will be all the greater."