Aye - No Bad

FOR THE PAST 45 years – give or take a few months – there has existed a clip of film which ought to be mandatory viewing for every Scottish sportsman or woman who gets to wear the thistle in competition, and every member of every platoon of the Tartan Army which supports them from the cheap seats.

This clip covers the great Allan Wells doing his Lap of Honour, after winning the 100 metres gold medal at the Moscow Olympic Games. That race and victory represented the peak of Wells' career and, as he soaks-up the applause from within the Olympic Stadium, he can clearly be heard talking to himself. He repeatedly says: “Keep the heid, keep the heid”. Wells knew the magnitude of his victory, but, while he was ready to embrace the moment, he was determined to avoid the old Scottish habit of thinking he had made it.

So, Keep the heid is my advice to my fellow Scots, on the back of England being put to the sword at Murrayfield on Saturday, ready to anoint us as Guinness Men's Six Nations Champions 2026. After all, we only beat the English, the Max Boyce Rule came into play on Saturday – in short:

And when that Great Scorer comes – to write against your name

It matters not who won or lost – but – did you beat England?

Well, we sent the Auld Enemy homeward to think again; the breakdown garages of our capital are wondering what to do with all the written-off chariots the acquired on the day, but, in our over the top celebrations, we are overlooking one wee detail – this England team is not nearly as good as their media cheer-leaders have built them up to be, so, we ought to keep the heid until we have beaten a good team or two. - like Ireland or France.

Right now, we seem capable of picking just about any 15 players and going out there to beat England. It's the one game each year I don't worry about. OK, we were probably not as bad in Rome as our media branded us. Similarly, we were perhaps not the world-beaters these same critics are declaring us to be, after Saturday. What I want to see is something we seldom get where reactions to Scotland performances is concerned – a wee bit of consistency.

No nation has greater sporting triumphs, or worse disasters than Scotland. It's been an issue since our sports writers – the legendary: Fans With Lap Tops, were Fans With Typewriters.

We now head for Cardiff, to face Wales. Right now, Wales are being seen as the whipping boys of the Six Nations, expectations are that Scotland will win and win well. The reality is since the end of the Second World War, we have travelled to Cardiff on 48 occcasions, we have won only 17 of these matches – 35%. Scotland winning in Cardiff is far from a given – even allowing for Wales' current travails.

England arrived at Murrayfield on Saturday on the back of a 12-game winning streak; the match proved to be unlucky number 13 for them. Wales await us on Saturday, on the back of a 12-game losing run in the Six Nations, might this game be lucky number 13 for the Welsh?

But, back to Saturday. Scotland's victory, to a degree, turned on its head, one of Rugby Union's eternal truths: Forwards win games, backs decide by how much.

In the scrums, Scotland were a distant second to England; to a degree, this was helped by Referee Nika Amashakeli's interpretation of the rules on scrumming. I admit, Ellis Genge has worked hard to become a better operator, but, he still cheats outrageously at scrums, and Nika let him do this. He was helped by the fact, Zander Fagerson had a bad day at the office. England ought to have made more of their scrum dominance, and I expect Pete de Villiers to work his pack hard in Spain this week.

Scotland's line out worked an awful lot better than in Rome, however; but, over the piece, we never had the forward dominance to run up a big score. This is therefore testimony to how well our backs played.

Long gone are the days when English commentators delighted in running down Finn Russell. His week-in, week-out performances for Bath have made Fleet Street's finest realise, he's a class act. However, they can never admit this in print or on-screen, not even after his master class on Saturday, topped off by that pass to Huw Jones. The last time I saw a threequarter do that, it was the great Mike Gibson, for the 1971 Lions. To equate Finn with the greatest 12 ever, shows how good MacMessi has become.

Another bonus for Scotland was the performances of some of the lesser lights, such as replacement tight-head Elliot Millar-Mills, whose display more than made up for that rare off day by ZF.

Matt Fagerson gave the sort of cameo the coaching staff can usually only hope for from a player who was dropped, while the same can be said for Pierre Schoemann.

I can recall the days when Scotland barely had 15 international-class players, today, we have a squad, with genuine alternatives available. Now, the next challenge, starting on Saturday, is to demonstrate we can beat nations other than England on a regular basis.

Meanwhile, let's just enjoy that winning feeling and use it to build for thee remainder of the Championship.