We had an outstanding pre-season and we are raring to go,

It came down to experience, these two are the most experienced guys we could lay hands on. What we now have in Scotland is genuine competition for places.

There has been a tremendous amount of sympathy towards Scott and I haven’t come across anybody who thought it was anything other than an accident. The referee’s view was that he had no choice because...

Scott has timed his return from injury very well. He’s fresh and enthusiastic and will be an invaluable member of our World Cup squad. These days it’s sometimes not a bad thing for players to...

Duncan needs an opportunity to show what he can do.

You only had to hear the players talking about Andy Murray’s victory in the tennis earlier in the week to appreciate how much they believe that Scotland can compete on a world stage. All these...

We will be monitoring him closely this week and obviously we will be considering other options. Ben MacDougall and Graeme Morrison will both be with us in training.

Conditions just got too difficult for the players and they couldn’t cope with it.

He is now one of the senior pros in the side and his physical approach makes him ideal to lead by example.

When you are away from home there is absolutely no substitute for experience. We are playing against a team that we have not beaten at Lansdowne Road for eight years.

We will go out and play rugby against France and we believe that we’re capable of doing something very special.

Like the top-quality guy he is, Dan has a very sound temperament. Thick-skinned would be a harsh description, but he seems to be able to cope with that stuff pretty well. That’s what you’re looking...

They are the first two people I want to speak to, … I’ve arranged to meet Hugh on Monday and I want to see Steve as soon as possible. It’s likely that the support team...

We’ll learn from that and the fact that we picked up a bonus point is a good thing. I was furious with that [the intercept try] because we knew that Ulster play a type of...

Unfortunately Marcus has not made the progress that we had hoped but as one door closes, another opens for Ben MacDougall who wins his first cap this weekend.

As a proud and passionate Scot this is the ultimate honour and one that I am determined to enjoy,

There is no point in engaging in speculation if Tom may be able to return to rugby in the future, because such speculation just increases the frustration for Tom,

We believe we have a very good chance of winning this weekend. What’s important to me is that the many thousands of Scots’ fans traveling to Dublin do so not just in hope but with...

Thankfully, I’m not superstitious,

The French have generated a level of consistency over the last half a dozen games that has perhaps been missing from them in the past. We’re aware that they’ve got a formidable array of talent...

Let there be no confusion, the way forward for Scottish Rugby is for the three professional teams to be the vehicle for driving professional rugby in this country,

There are on-going discussions but it was not a factor in changing the second row.

The reason Ben moved was to get the week-in, week-out rugby he could not be guaranteed in Edinburgh, and the wisdom of his move has been demonstrated throughout the season and underlined today.

I will be speaking to my fellow coaches when we gather for the first time on Sunday night. We have a number of candidates and we will be assessing leadership qualities and their aptitude for...

It was a missed opportunity because we didn’t play well enough in the first half,

The simple fact is that we will need our most experienced guys for what will be a massively difficult game.

We targeted the Llanelli line-out and it was especially pleasing to see Scott and Ally Kellock come up trumps.

Mike deserves his chance to start but, putting my hand on my heart, I could say that Chris will play a very important part in our Six Nations campaign. We are fortunate to have such...

As far as captaincy is concerned I will be speaking to my fellow coaches when we gather for the first time on Sunday night,

I’m confident where we are. We have laid some very important foundation stones. We were never going to make dramatic progress in one season. I never thought we would win the championship this year, but...

Ben’s got a lot of qualities, but this is a very big match and we’ve got a lot of confidence that he’s a big-time player. He’s got a lot of experience from back home. The...

There was a tremendously committed and determined effort from our boys,

He will have to detach himself to some extent while still being one of the lads.

I didn’t think we’d continue to play so poorly, that sooner or later we’d start to execute better. We know that if we are going to crack the nut of an away win in the...

That situation has to be managed for Nathan and for Scotland.

I said during the build up to the match that we would play well. We didn’t play brilliantly but the guts and the commitment the guys displayed were outstanding. The important thing was that we...

We have a number of candidates for captain and we will be assessing leadership qualities and their aptitude for the job during the squad sessions over the next few weeks.