“Anything to add to that, Gregor?” ….. “No!”
The “deluded” comments from Eddie O’Sullivan, about Scotland were always going to come up at the launch of the 2021 Guinness Six Nations. Seven minutes into Gregor Townsend and Stuart Hogg’s press conference, it sure did.
Back in December, after Ireland wrapped up their Nations Cup campaign with a home win over the Scots, Hogg spoke about how unlucky his team was not to win and how they had been in control for 70 minutes of the match. Over on RTE, O’Sullivan responded:
Stuart Hogg during the Scotland Rugby captain’s run at the Aviva Stadium in February 2020. (Photo by Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile)“We’ve seen all this before. They always talk themselves up, they always talk a great game. They have some deluded notion that they are better than they are.
“I’m not being harsh. These guys haven’t won here in ten years, they’ve won three times against Ireland in nearly 20 years. It’s just deluded. They talk themselves up, they come in, and then they implode. We have seen this time and time again. Hogg says ‘We are onto something special’?!”
Hogg was asked about that broadside from the former Ireland head coach, the Scotland captain said he had been ‘made aware’ of them.
“We’re looking to concentrate on the comments that come from within the four walls of our changing room, and our family and friends.
“To be honest, he’s entitled to his opinion but we’re just concentrating on ourselves. I think now as I felt at the time – that we were very much in control of that game, especially in the first half. We had a couple of costly errors that were bad for us.
“As I said, then, I did believe we were in a very good place then and he disagreed. But he’s entitled to his opinion, and we’ll leave it at that.”
Asked if he had anything he wanted to add, a smiling Townsend replied, “No.”
Ireland face Scotland again on March 14 at Murrayfield and we have an extra log for the Scots’ motivational fire.
