Scottish rugby needs to shed the nerves and focus on the process not the outcome

Whether by accident or design, three key figures have come out to talk about our teams’ inability to perform under pressure and deliver when it really matters in key games. All three are associated with Glasgow Warriors and all three made some cogent observations.

Franco Smith, the head coach, said Scottish teams struggle in the big games. He had first hand experience of this last season when his Glasgow side went down 43-19 to Toulon in the European Challenge Cup final without really firing a shot. It was his first year in charge and the progress made in Smith’s short tenure has been impressive. They currently sit second in the United Rugby Championship, one point behind Leinster, but Smith knows the real proving ground will be the play-offs, the one-off games.

“Scottish teams in general, the big games they tend to be too nervous,” Smith said in an interview with BBC Scotland. “You concentrate so much on what you want out of the game instead of the process to be followed. It’s understandable, everyone here wants to win silverware and it’s a young bunch of players in certain areas specifically. We need to develop focus on what’s doable to win and not just want to win.”

Fraser Brown, who announced his retirement this week, started that Toulon match, one of four finals he played in with Glasgow during a stellar career for club and country. He was part of the Warriors side which won the Pro12 final against Munster in Belfast in 2015 which remains the only major trophy won by a Scottish club in the professional era. Writing in this newspaper, he said the success of nine years ago was a career highlight but also reflected that “it would have been nice to have won a couple more”.

George Horne, his erstwhile team-mate, was too young to play in 2015 but featured in the 2019 Pro14 final which Glasgow lost to Leinster and in last season’s Challenge Cup final. The Scotland scrum-half has also been frustrated on big occasions with the national team and knows something needs to change.

“It seems to be a common thing with Scottish rugby - you should have won that game,” Horne told the BBC Scotland Rugby Podcast. “We’ve just got to go out and actually just get it done. We’re conscious of that, especially as a senior player group; that when it gets to these big games that are swung on tiny moments, we're not getting it done.”

There is little respite to be found across the M8. Edinburgh’s last showpiece occasion came in 2015 when they lost to Gloucester in the Challenge Cup final. They reached the Pro14 semis in 2020, the European Champions Cup semis in 2012, finished runners-up in the Celtic League in 2009 and were beaten in the old Celtic Cup final in 2004. Close, but no cigar.

Edinburgh, like Glasgow, are on course to make this season’s URC play-offs and Horne knows it’s time for action rather than words.

“We can't talk about how close we are, it's just actually acting on that in the game,” he said. “We're so desperate to get it done but until that happens it's just something that's so frustrating.”