Pressure is on Scotland to justify top-team hype – Dan Biggar

Dan Biggar claims the pressure is all on Scotland when Wales attempt to burst their Guinness Six Nations bubble for a third successive season.

And Biggar says there would have been no point in the Wales squad catching their flight to Edinburgh if they had been engulfed by apparent media hype surrounding “the best team in the tournament”.

Wales have been here before.

Two years ago, they went to Murrayfield and beat Scotland a week after the Scots toppled England at Twickenham, then last season Biggar and company triumphed in Cardiff seven days on from this weekend’s opponents retaining the Calcutta Cup.

The identical scenario preludes Saturday’s latest meeting, with Scotland aiming to win their opening two Six Nations games for a first time in the tournament’s 23-year history.

Biggar, meanwhile, was also keen to highlight Wales’ overall Six Nations record of six titles, four Grand Slams and five Triple Crowns, a total that no other country can match.

“Scotland played well last week against England, but according to you guys they are the best team around aren’t they?” Wales fly-half Biggar said.

“We will have to see how they go on Saturday, see if they can back it up. The pressure is all on them.

“They are red-hot favourites, best team in the tournament, so we will see how they go (on) Saturday.

“We don’t seem to get any credit and other teams seem to get a lot of praise for probably not quite the success we’ve had, but that’s how it goes.

“It is a really difficult ask, but I think this country and this group of boys tend to respond really well when our backs are against the wall and we have got to come out fighting.”

Wales have won on six of their last seven visits to Murrayfield, with an overall success-rate of 85 per cent across the countries’ last 20 encounters, home and away.

And Warren Gatland has never been on the losing side against Scotland as Wales head coach, posting an unblemished record during his first stint as Wales boss between 2008 and 2019.

Confidence

“They will fancy their chances, they have picked a strong side, lots of good players who played well last week and they will be full of confidence,” Biggar added.

“But it was the same last year. We got off to a really slow start in Ireland and then played Scotland, you guys wrote us off before the game was played and we rolled our sleeves up and did a job.

“If you listen to everyone – which is what is great about this game – we might as well not have bothered catching the flight.”

Despite a 34-10 loss to Ireland in their Six Nations opener, Wales know that victory at Murrayfield would set up an intriguing encounter against England later this month.

“I think our record is as good as anyone’s in this competition over the previous 10 years or whatever,” Biggar said.

“Medals are important when you look back at your career and we have been lucky enough to fill the cabinet a few times.

“It is up to other teams to try and replicate that, really. Hopefully, if teams do that then they will deservedly get praise.

“They (Scotland) are a fantastic team at the minute playing with confidence, lots of good players.

“In Wales, you lose a game, you get criticised; you win, it is just sort of brushed over.

“It is one of those things where we just try and control what we can, but we do have a bit of a laugh that there are other teams around who get a fair bit of praise without really backing it up, I suppose.”