Scotland out for Six Nations revenge against Ireland, says Ross Ford
Friday 18 March 2016 15:04, UK
Ross Ford says Scotland are keen to use the pain of last year's heavy defeat to Ireland as motivation when the sides clash in the last weekend of the Six Nations on Saturday.
Joe Schmidt's title-chasers dished out a 40-10 drubbing to the Scots 12 months ago as they edged past England to claim their second successive crown and condemn Vern Cotter's men to a whitewash.
However, the fortunes of both teams seem to be heading in opposite directions going into the Dublin fixture, with the hosts having let their title slip on the back of a campaign that has so far produced just one win and a draw after the retirement of inspirational skipper Paul O'Connell.
Scotland, however, have secured back-to-back triumphs over Italy and the French and are now looking for their first hat-trick of victories in 20 years, with hooker Ford eyeing revenge for last year's thumping.
"We will use last season's game a little bit for motivation. It has been mentioned. It would be silly if you didn't look back at it," he said. "It was a poor performance from us. But this time we are a far better team than we were then.
"We just want to do ourselves justice by putting in a good performance. I think they're going through a bit of a transition. They have lost a few key members of the squad. But they are still a dangerous team who don't make too many mistakes.
"We've got a fairly settled squad but we tend to focus on what we can do, rather than getting too carried away with the opposition. We understand what their threats are but it always comes back to what we can affect during the game. It does help that we're fairly settled and it seems to work for us, so we'll just carry on in that vain."
Ford will be presented with his 99th Scotland cap on Saturday and, including the single appearance he made for the British and Irish Lions during the 2009 tour of South Africa, he will wrap up his century. However, the Edinburgh forward is not expecting much fanfare.
Asked if he was anticipating a special day, he said: "Not really. I don't tend to look at the stats and the numbers while I'm playing. I just enjoy playing with the boys and winning games.
"There's nothing special been done yet. I'm just going out to play the game like I normally would and put in a performance that I'll be happy with. The century of international caps is not something I've really thought about.
"The 100 caps for Scotland does come up. Folk mention it. But again all I can do is perform to the best of my abilities and do my bit as part of the team. If that leads to more caps, then so be it. It's not a target or anything. I just enjoy playing for my country."
Meanwhile, Matt Taylor, Cotter's specialist defence coach, believes the Scottish XV which runs out at the Aviva Stadium is in much better shape to cope with Schmidt's line-up.
"Last year was a combination of things, unfortunately," he said. "It was the last game of the tournament. We performed reasonably in the first couple of games but through dwindling confidence and injuries we probably played our worst game of the season against the best team.
"They needed a certain amount of points to win the title and we weren't up to it. We were disappointed in that performance but we are certainly right up for this game."
Last year, Scotland's downfall regularly stemmed from their inability to keep the penalty count down but those faults seem to have been ironed out, with the Dark Blues the cleanest of the six nations so far, having won eight more penalties than they have conceded across their four games.
"Discipline has been a real focus for us over the last year and it's starting to bear fruits," Taylor said. "We're probably the best team in the championship for discipline this year and we were at the World Cup. Refs here know that now, whereas in the past we were really poor and were maybe ready to penalise us.
"But we've moved on as a team. We've worked on our techniques at both the tackle contest and the scrum and it's working."
