Matt Fagerson believes the key to Scotland bouncing back from their second successive World Cup pool stage exit is to make sure the core of the squad stays together so that the squad can start their next four-year cycle building to the 2027 World Cup immediately. The players will now return to their clubs for the remainder of the calendar year, with the Scots-based ones to be rested for a few weeks while the English and French-based ones won’t be given as much or perhaps any time off. Scrum-half Ben white starts training with Toulon today.
The squad will then reconvene early in 2024 to begin preparations for the Six Nations, which kicks-off away to Wales on 3rd February. “If you look at Ireland since that last World Cup, they seem to have managed to keep that core together and built on the progress they made leading into that tournament,” reasoned Fagerson. “The group we have at the minute is pretty incredible. We’ve spoken a lot over the last while about how well-connected it is, and that’s not just something we say, it is genuinely the best-connected group we’ve had, and it’s great to be part of. “So, if we can keep that core together, then we have so many great squad players out with who we can bring in, so the building blocks are there and we need to start that next four-year cycle coming into the Six Nations." The back-rower admitted that the squad were gutted that their crucial pool match against Ireland was dead as a contest before they managed to fire a shot on Saturday night, but added that the outlook should not be all doom and gloom. “South Africa are probably the most physical team in the world and for 60 minutes of that game we definitely fronted up,” he said, in reference to Scotland’s Pool B opener which they lost 18-3.
“Ireland have got that same sort of physicality but they’ve added that layer of a great skill-set amongst their forwards and I think we were maybe caught out a little bit by that.
“We pride ourselves on defence, we are up there as one of the best defensive systems in the world, but we were shown where we are weak in that area by Ireland, so it is a lesson learned.
“Everyone is pretty gutted. It obviously didn’t start the way we wanted and Ireland are a very well-drilled team – everyone seems to be on the same page with the way they play and they’ve had four years to perfect that.
“Over the last four or five weeks we’ve been shown a blueprint of what it takes to be at the top and we’ll take a lot of lessons out this World Cup then hope to put our best foot forward in the Six Nations.”
