These are your evening rugby headlines on Tuesday, March 4.
Wales pile pressure on 'best ever' Scotland team
Adam Jones insists the pressure is all on Scotland ahead of Saturday's Six Nations clash at Murrayfield and is confident Wales can rattle them.
Scotland are firm favourites to beat Wales but they have yet to achieve anything of note with arguably their best crop of players for over 30 years. And Wales scrum coach Jones is confident this is something Wales can exploit on the weekend.
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"It’s 15 losses on the bounce (for Wales). There’s no pressure," said Jones. "There’s pressure on Scotland. This is probably one of the best sides they’ve ever had, if not the best side they’ve ever had.
"They’ll be expecting to beat us pretty comfortably at home, against a team that’s lost 14 times. We showed we can go toe to toe with one of the best teams in the world.
"We rattled them a bit," he added. "We didn’t get across the line, but we’ll keep building on that with some standout players. You’ve just got to rip into them as much as you can. I’m sure the boys will."
Jones insists Wales are desperate to end their record losing run at Murrayfield and is quietly confident they can rattle Scotland.
"I know I said they’re the best Scottish team ever," he said. "But there’s a bit of confidence now with us. There’s the feel-good factor.
"They have got good players, don’t get me wrong. But you can rattle good players and get stuck into them. We’re not going up there in awe of them. It’s a good place to play. The Welsh travel well. Max Boyce wrote a song about it so they always travel well up there.
"We’re not going to go up there daunted," Jones continued. "They’ve got good coaches. My old friend Steve Tandy has done a brilliant job with the defence. We want to get the monkey off our back.
"We’re going up there to win. We’re not going up there to make up the numbers."
Players 'laughing' at referees amid controversy
Former Ireland lock Donncha O’Callaghan claims players are "laughing" at referees as the fallout from Garry Ringrose's sending-off against Wales continues.
Ringrose was issued a 20-minute red card for an illegal hit on Ben Thomas when the two sides met in Cardiff in the last round of the Six Nations, but it was announced last week that he would miss just one fixture in the tournament before returning to the side on the final weekend.
While he was handed a three-week suspension, the Irishman was able to reduce it to two by agreeing to attend World Rugby's tackle school. It has since emerged that the disciplinary committee deciding Ringrose's ban were shown evidence that the Irish Rugby Football Union emailed Leinster to inform them that the player would be released to the province during the fallow week, meaning their URC clash with Cardiff was included in the suspension.
The practical length of the ban has come under fire, with O'Callaghan admitting he was "massively" disappointed with the suspension, the likes of which he claims are "eroding the values of the game".
Appearing on the BBC’s Rugby Union Weekly podcast, the former second row said: “What we’ve tried to fix is the integrity of the match itself but I think we’re eroding the values of the game – and that just gets thrown around the place – but when you see stuff like this, it’s massively disappointing.
“I really do worry, we have to be sharper off the pitch than we are at the moment because I feel it’s leading to great pressure on referees and it’s not surprising to see people walking away from the game."
“The most important thing in our game is respect for refs," O'Callaghan added. "Honestly, how can they have that when they are handing out that type of sanction and in the end, it’s only a week ban? The players are laughing at them now as they hold up the card nowadays.
“I think we’re incredibly lucky to have Garry back on the pitch so soon… but to see the way the citing went is for me disappointing.”
Kinghorn: Wales clash will be 'really tough'
Scotland full-back Blair Kinghorn insists his side won't be taking Wales lightly this weekend after being left impressed by their performance against Ireland.
While Wales are still on a dismal run of 15 successive Test match defeats, they looked a different side in their first game under interim head coach Matt Sherratt with a much-improved attacking display giving hope that they may soon be able to turn things around.
Scotland remain heavy favourites for Saturday's clash at Murrayfield, but with the hosts having an underwhelming tournament to date, Kinghorn is wary of the threat a buoyed Welsh can pose.
“They’ve obviously been through a fairly tough time recently,” he told The Herald as he previewed this weekend's meeting. “But their game against Ireland last weekend shows just how much of an improved team they are.
“So, it’s going to be a really tough test match for us. We know that, we are not taking anything lightly. We are preparing as well as we can and it should be a really good game in front of our fans.”
Reflecting on Scotland's tournament so far, the Toulouse star added: “I think we are really disappointed. I think having watched it [the England game] back a few times now, there were loads of opportunities for us to go out there and win the game.
“I think we played the better rugby. We certainly put our attacking brand onto the field but we just weren’t able to capitalise and it cost us in the end.”
