SOME random events from 1983. The first £1 coin is minted, the initial episodes of Breakfast Time, Blockbusters and Blackadder air on terrestrial TV, while a mysterious musical recording device known as the Compact Disc goes on sale for the first time. Aberdeen are lording it over Real Madrid in a European football final, while in world affairs, a handbag-wielding female Conservative Prime Minister in Margaret Thatcher cosies up to an unpredictable, bellicose Republican US President in Ronald Reagan. If history is repeating itself in terms of global geopolitics some 34 years down the line in the form of Teresa May and Donald Trump, perhaps that is good news for the Scotland rugby team, because March of that year was also the last time they succeeded in beating England at Twickenham.
Like the rest of this Scotland team, hooker Fraser Brown is young enough to feel slightly insulted when it was enquired if he was born when that famous 22-12 win took place. As this group of Scotland players march on London this week hoping for the win that would secure them their first triple crown since 1990, it is typical that this stoic 27-year-old is determined to focus on the details and not get obsessed with all the weight of history surrounding this match. Or perhaps, considering all the great Scottish players who have tried and failed to get a result over the intervening 34 years, perhaps that should be the wait of history. Even the much-derided Scotland football team got a result at Wembley in '99.
"I think stuff like that is more important to the media and the fans," said the Glasgow Warriors hooker, a key part of a smoothly-functioning Scottish scrum and line-out against Wales. "We don't look at that. If you think about the weight of history and things like that it affects the way you approach the game and takes your focus away from what's important, and that's the details.
"But it's a hard place to go and win, lots of teams have gone there before with very good sides and not won," he added. "But the performances you've seen in the past year have been building for a while. I think you can see the skill we have on show. The difference now is maybe having the confidence and self belief to execute those skills.
"If we go behind like we did against Ireland or Wales it's about having that confidence in the guys around you to know that you are always going to get an opportunity. It's about having that level headedness to execute those opportunities, I think in years gone by we got a bit frantic and a bit rushed."
Vern Cotter has done a fine job of developing a professional mindset amongst these players - they know that executing their skills and game plan with precision and accuracy is their best way of achieving their aims. But don't underestimate the emotions which will be bubbling away beneath the surface. Brown knows they will have to hit heights of performance even greater than they have thus far in this year's Six Nations to succeed, but this group of players want to achieve greatness to validate their efforts over the entire Vern Cotter era and to give their departing Kiwi coach something tangible to sign off with.
"England are unbeaten in a lot of games and they're the form team in the world right now so you know you're going to have to play well," said Brown. "So we will have to play a lot better than we did against Wales, cut out some of the mistakes and tighten up in a few areas. You don't know how the opposition are going to play; you can only try to affect their game by the pressure you put on them. The longer you can do that throughout the 80 minutes the more chances you'll have.
"You want to put in a performance and win because the coaches have put in such hard work," said Brown. "They look at these fixtures a month in advance, they prepare a game plan and work on it hard. For this group of players it's an enormous thing to keep progressing and to keep progressing we need to be performing every week. We can't allow fallow weeks where we sit back a bit or don't perform. Yes, it's for the coaches but for ourselves as well, to try to achieve something in a Scotland Jersey."
Rugby has always been a compromise between the skillsets of forwards and backs, even if they have grown closer over the years. When he is wearying late on a match, Brown admits he loves nothing more than seeing Scotland's current quicksilver backline carrying the ball the length of the field or converting their hard work into points. "We are going through a lot of phases, it's a lot of hard work," said the 27-year-old, who has also played back row." Sometimes it looks like you are not making a lot of gains or getting much change out of it. But that hard work is creating the opportunities. When you see the back row interlinking and putting away the opportunities that we get, when it might only be a man overlap and you put it away, obviously it gives you a boost. When you're working hard in the 22 and you're having centres and backs working off 9 and coming off ten to try to relieve the load it gives you a breather."
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