Six Nations 2016: Greig Laidlaw leads Scotland’s grand uprising

He started World Cup fighting for his place but came out of it a possible Lion. Now the captain tells Robin Scott-Elliot his team can build on recent events to improve at Six Nations level

Greig Laidlaw with the Six Nations trophy. Scotland last won the title in 1999 (Getty Images)

Two men and two moments, two split-second decisions taken under immense pressure that would propel each along contrasting roads. One pushed Chris Robshaw down the low road, towards his own sporting nightmare. The other took Greig Laidlaw up the high road, over the tryline and kept Scotland in the World Cup.

Robshaw’s ill-fated decision in the narrow defeat against Wales to kick for the corner rather than goal will define his time in an England shirt. While he and his men in white fumbled their moment, or lineout to be precise, Laidlaw seized his and that is in part why the diminutive – by today’s rugby standards – Borderer will lead Scotland out at Murrayfield on Saturday, unchallenged as his country’s leader and even proposed by others as an outsider to head the British Lions if the next couple of years follow a similar path.

Laidlaw entered the World Cup under as much pressure within the Scottish game as Robshaw was down south. The 5ft 9in scrum-half captained Scotland through their dire Six Nations campaign last year. In the final game he was hauled off to the bench less than an hour into the home side’s 40-10 disintegration to Ireland at Murrayfield that rubber-stamped a humbling whitewash. Sam Hidalgo-Clyne’s busy improvement in an Edinburgh shirt, and off the bench for Scotland, suggested it might be time for a change.

As head coach Vern Cotter pondered his choice to lead Scotland into the World Cup there was talk of turning to a “group of leaders” rather than having one man hold the job. The New Zealander kept faith with Laidlaw. He had a fine tournament but it was in the final, decisive pool fixture against Samoa that Laidlaw proved Cotter had undoubtedly made the correct choice.

Scotland had to win and as a frenetic, see-saw encounter entered its final stage with Laidlaw’s men three points to the good, they were awarded a penalty deep within the Samoan 22, a gimme of three points. Instead Laidlaw took the scrum, darted off its base and scored a try to give Scotland the breathing space they needed to hold off Samoa’s try-scoring response. Scotland won by three.

The quarter-final defeat by Australia that followed, sealed by Bernard Foley’s controversial last-gasp penalty, left a painful scar on all in blue, but the team returned home with no doubts as to who will lead them into what promises to be a brighter future, even if that should be tempered by the knowledge that there have been a few of those falsely forecast in recent years. Yet Scotland took home plenty of positives from their time in England.

“Yeah, very much so,” said Laidlaw. “I actually watched the Australia game last night for the first time in full. I got excited watching it. I was able to take the emotion away from it and, crikey, we played some good rugby. It gave me a great feeling.

“That anger from how the game finished will never disappear. I’ve been asked about it and it will come and go. But we can use it in the right way. I simply watched the tape back as a game of rugby and I got a lot out of it. We played well but we could have played even better. Now it’s about building momentum. It’s a great squad environment to be in right now and that’s been built by the coaches. Those little things go a long way, in my opinion.”

On Saturday Laidlaw, who became only the second Scot ever nominated for the World Player of the Year award on the back of his World Cup, will captain his country for the 22nd time. Only David Sole has led them more times and Laidlaw will pass the 1990 Grand Slam captain’s 25-game mark if he stays fit, and on form, through the Six Nations.

Laidlaw turned 30 in the week of the Australia game last October. He has taken his time to reach his peak, although that is in part down to the vagaries of Scotland’s erratic selection policies during the many troughs and infrequent peaks of recent years. His first 10 starts were in the No 10 shirt. But he has always been a No 9 at heart, born and bred in the Borders town of Jed-Forest where his uncle Roy, Scotland’s greatest No 9, played his club rugby, as did Gary Armstrong. Laidlaw is a little different to his terrier-like predecessors, perhaps more in the mould of Pierre Berbizier, the “Little General”. He himself has long admired the Australian George Gregan.

His leadership qualities have always been there. His PE teacher, Bill Johnstone, labelled him “feisty, courageous, a great leader”, while Richie Gray, who has rejoined Scotland’s coaching staff this season after time with South Africa, also saw the potential in the teenage Laidlaw when he began attending his Borders rugby academy.

Roy Laidlaw and Armstrong captained Scotland. They also each won a Grand Slam and toured with the Lions. The latter is not out of this Laidlaw’s reach, given his playing ability, leadership and goal-kicking – he came home from the World Cup with 79 points, more than any other Briton – even if it will take some doing.

The former? Dream on is the first thought that comes to mind. Scotland have not won the title for 17 years, when it was still the Five Nations. Winning two games this season would be a step forward for a side that has won three times in the last three Six Nations, two against Italy and once against Ireland. Laidlaw’s record in the tournament demonstrates how bleak Scotland’s recent form has been – three wins from 20 games. He has played against England four times and lost all four, including the horrid 20-0 defeat last time they came to Murrayfield in 2014.

For all Scotland’s improvement under Cotter and their creditable World Cup, there remains plenty of ground to make up. But there is genuine hope, not least through the half-back combination of Laidlaw and young Finn Russell – is there possibly even a potential touch of Roy Laidlaw and John Rutherford here? – Mark Bennett outside them, the Gray brothers in the second row and an all-Edinburgh front row that is Scotland’s best for some years.

“We need to move on from the World Cup now,” said Laidlaw. “Clearly, Scotland have underperformed in the [Six Nations] in the past. If we can be the team who turned that around, that would be a great legacy for us to leave for the next group. We are totally fixed on doing that. But those stats don’t impact our mindset because we can’t be thinking negative at all. Our last performance was a good one and we were extremely close to making it into that semi-final.

“We have got to take the good points from that game forwards as well as the lessons on why we fell short. If we can do that we will be in a good place. It starts in our training. We are trying to get that no-excuse mentality drilled into the squad. I think we are getting there.”