Price and Horne, and that that hampers
Scotland’s ambition to play a quick, expansive
brand of rugby.
But the 71-times capped Laidlaw, argued
that his experience is equally important.
He said: “That’s where you need to
be fast sometimes.”
That has been the Clermont man’s point of
difference in recent years, with his goalkicking
and game management serving Scotland well
in tight games.
According to Laidlaw, he has also made a
point to continually add strings to his bow
and expand his game without letting that
overshadow what he does best.
“You’re always trying to add things to your
game,” he explained.
“Hopefully, defensively, I’m a little bit stronger;
that’s something I worked hard on, going to
France and Gregor is also big on his support
lines from scrum-half, so that’s something new
I’m trying to add to my game as well.
“But underpinning it all is the way I see the
game, my ability to control things, and my
goalkicking, and I want to make sure I look
after what I do well too.”
Laidlaw has the hurt of the 2015 World
Cup - when Scotland were controversially
dumped out by Australia in the quarter finals -
to drive him on, and steel him for another shot
at the Rugby World Cup.
However, although he recognises that that
loss still “burns away inside”, he does not
want to waste energy on churning over
old ground.
“We won’t get it back,” he said, reflecting on
the last-minute quarter-final defeat to the
Wallabies at Twickenham in 2015.
Laidlaw commented: “We’ll try and put
our energy into this one and try to not get
ourselves into that position. It would be good
to be in quarter final and use our experience
“Leaders are not always
the guys who come out
and speak - you look back
at the last World Cup
and you had Ross Ford,
Alasdair Dickinson, big
Richie Gray, good leaders
in their own right - but we
have a good leadership
group this time as well”
Laidlaw's goalkicking is
key for Scotlandto get over the line this time, but we can’t
look past the first game,” he added.
“We have Ireland first up in a difficult
pool so we need to negotiate that first,
and then take it from there.”
While Laidlaw and John Barclay
appear to be the front-runners to
lead Scotland into the Rugby World Cup,
the 33-year-old also gave his view on
leadership.
“Leaders are not always the guys who
come out and speak - you look back at
the last World Cup and you had Ross
Ford, Alasdair Dickinson, big Richie Gray,
good leaders in their own
right - but we have a good leadership
group this time as well,”
Laidlaw continued.
“It’s good that Barcs (John Barclay) is
back fit and starting to play because
he’s an excellent leader. Stuart McInally
has done a good job as a young captain
at Edinburgh too so we’ve certainly
been trying to help him along, while
developing other boys to come
through as well.”
At 33, Laidlaw won’t be part of the squad
for the 2023 Rugby World Cup in France,
so expect to see the best of the
Jed-Forest man in the weeks and months
to come as he fights to reclaim the
number nine jersey and put right the
wrongs of the quarter-final heartbreak
from four years ago.LAIDLAW FACTS
- 71 Test caps, 68 as starter
- 673 Test points, second highest on all-time list
behind Chris Paterson - Captained Scotland a record 37 times - 17 wins,
30 defeats - Scored 79 points at 2015 Rugby World Cup
- Won 2018/19 Challenge Cup with Clermont
Auvergne and finished as runner-up in Top14
ISSUE 116 2019 • WWW.SCRUMMAGAZINE.COM • 61RUGBY WORLD CUP - SCOTLAND PREVIEW