The Guinness Six Nations is the peak moment for rugby rivalries and at the Rec, that makes the Calcutta Cup the most hotly-anticipated fixture of the entire tournament.
Finn Russell is the most high-profile Scot at Bath, but teammates Cam Redpath and Josh Bayliss join him in the Scottish posse, who are not backwards in a little trash talk ahead of the Six Nations.
Given that Scotland have won the last four meetings with England, you can understand why.
Tighthead prop Will Stuart is one of two Bath players to have featured for England so far, and he admits that there is a little more riding on this weekend – particularly after an unfortunate coming together with Redpath in last year’s defeat.
Bath Banter
“There is always a little bit of chat before the Six Nations, that goes back and forth,” said Stuart, speaking at Allianz Stadium.
“They are all really good guys and I get on really well with them. It’s a funny one, you step out of club colours and are supposed to hate each other a little bit.
“The last Six Nations game, Cam and I had a collision where I’ve broken his nose with my swede, I don’t know how it happened, I don’t want to perjure myself that I should have got a red card, but I have taken his nose off his face.
“He wasn’t too happy and his girlfriend gave me some stick for ruining it after the game because he’s a good-looking guy.”
Should he feature in the remaining three games in this year’s Six Nations, Stuart will bring up his half-century of England appearances.
And yet he is still waiting to beat Scotland for the first time, having been an unused replacement the last time England won the Calcutta Cup back in 2020.
Itching for a win over Scotland
He recalled: “I was on the bench and didn’t come on. That would have been my second cap. That was a long time ago. There is a big pre-existing rivalry, it means a lot to the Scottish and to us and they always really turn up to those games.
If we want to be the team we want to be, you can’t ever expect to win games, that has shown in the last four or five years, Scotland have got better and better and we’ve had some tough periods.
“Now that we are on more of a trajectory, especially performance-wise, it’s a really good test in a rivalry to show how much we have improved.”
That upward trajectory started with a dramatic one-point victory over France last weekend, with England edging out Les Bleus 26-25 to end a run of seven successive defeats to tier one opposition.
They more than held their own against the French scrum during that victory, with Stuart starting to establish himself as a top-class international tighthead.
Senior Member
At 28, he is now the second oldest prop in the England squad behind Ellis Genge, a position that he admits has taken him aback, having spent much of his career to now working alongside the likes of Dan Cole, Joe Marler and Kyle Sinckler.
He added: “It sneaks up on you that. It’s quite a terrifying revelation. I looked the other day and I think in the starting XV I was the fifth oldest. I still feel like I’m 18 so it was a bit of a kick in the teeth. Ellis is the leader of the scrum stuff and leads meetings.
“From my perspective, being a bit more senior now with caps, it’s more about from when I was a young lad coming, it was how the older lads, Marler, Sincks, Coley a couple of years after, were really making a massive effort to help the young lads.
“As a young lad going in, I know how important that was, getting made to feel part of the group. These guys were taking time out of training schedules to go through clips. For me, that is where I see myself, trying to help young lads. I know it’s a fairly daunting thing coming into this environment for the first time.
“It meant a lot (beating France), you could see on the sidelines everyone was a bit giddy, celebrating as if we had just won the World Cup. But I think you need that sometimes, off the back of a few tough losses, you don’t have the wins in the column to show the progress you have made, but we all felt we had been making big progress.
“So to get a win in tough conditions, with backs against the wall a little bit, the opportunities that France squandered, we missed some as well, but sticking in it and still being brave and aggressive in attack in the last 15 minutes, pushing them and scoring tries, it’s one of the best atmospheres I’ve experienced here. It was a good moment.”
READ MORE: No pressure on Fin Smith to outdo Finn Russell in Calcutta Cup – Ollie Lawrence
Get ready for round three of the Guinness Men’s Six Nations as England take on Scotland at Allianz Stadium this Saturday 22nd February #AllianzStadium #TogetherWeRaiseTheRoof
