Former Scotland captain Bryan Redpath believes the absence of the Twickenham crowd in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic was the catalyst for Scotland’s Calcutta Cup dominance.
On Saturday, Gregor Townsend’s men will be looking to stretch their run to five in a row in front of 82,000 fans at the home of English rugby.
The restrictions imposed by the pandemic four years ago meant the Redpath family were forced to watch son Cameron help Scotland defeat England 11-6 on TV.
Since that eerily strange day at Twickenham, Scotland have held onto the famous Cup for four successive years with Cameron part of last year’s 30-21 win at Murrayfield.
“It was obviously weird,” Redpath Sr exclusively told talkSPORT.com. “It was COVID and [the family] were sat in the house, when for Cam, it was a dream come true.
“No crowd [at Twickenham] in 2021 helped Scotland massively. It meant the crowd wasn’t an influencer on the game, so it was just us against them.
“That helped Scotland because it comes down to who gets the tactics right, the discipline right and who needs the crowd more. I think on that day obviously Scotland had all the drivers and didn’t need the crowd. When you play at home, you tend to use the crowd to support you on every decision which can put pressure on officials. And in that game it didn’t happen.
“From that day on, there was a feeling for Scotland that there’s nobody in the England team that we feel individually is going to break us. So let’s just make sure we do our stuff and be in the fight for 80 minutes. If we are, then we’ve got the players.
“England has had changes in coaches and personnel while Scotland haven’t in the last six, seven years and Gregor (Townsend, head coach) has a huge record against England.”
Remarkably, Cameron, who plays centre for Bath alongside Scotland fly half Finn Russell, is unbeaten in his two matches against England, a record that is in stark contrast to his father’s against the Auld Enemy.
In Redpath’s decade in the Scotland team, he won 60 caps with more than 20 earned as captain. During that time (1993-2003), Scotland played England 14 times with just one victory in 2000 when Ducan Hodge scored all 19 points. Redpath was on the replacement’s bench that day.
The 53-year-old said: “I went eight years not losing to Ireland, and now we have gone 15 years without beating them – there’s always cycles that go on.
“There’s always little patches throughout the decades where there’s times where you win games.
“England have been one of the most consistent top four teams in the world for decades, while Scotland haven’t been a top four team. However, the pressure is on England again and it’s not on us because we haven’t performed great – we have won one and lost one.”
So, why does the former Scotland captain believe Scotland can make it five in a row?
“With professionalism, I don’t think the gap between England, with all their players, and Scotland is as big anymore. If you compare the exposure the players in Scotland were getting back then, to now, with a number playing for clubs in England and France, it’s a more level playing field and Scotland don’t fear England.
“They can go 15 points behind and still believe that they can win because that is the nature of these Scotland players.”
Cameron, 25 years old, played for England at age group levels before switching to Scotland and has won 14 caps despite battling against a series of major operations in his career. He is now close to returning to the Scotland team after his latest injury set back, training with the national squad this week.
Redpath added: “We have always been immensely proud of Cam, even when he was playing for England in the age level stuff and training with the national team. There’s always pride and national rugby is a privilege whether it was with England or Scotland.
“But, obviously Scotland is an added connection to the wider family. He’s had eight big operations; two ACLs, three shoulder operations, neck surgery, two cartilage operations, and then these hamstring injuries he’s never had before.
“He has shown resilience and dedication to getting back fit and has just been extremely unfortunate. But his ability to come out the other end is massive and he has to take huge pride in himself.”
