Scotland ‘know they can get better’ after beating England in Six Nations opener

Forwards coach John Dalziel is excited about Scotland’s Six Nations prospects after they beat England without hitting top form on Saturday.

The Scots eked out a hard-fought 20-17 Calcutta Cup win at BT Murrayfield despite being outplayed for long periods of the match.

Gregor Townsend’s side were already hotly fancied to make an impact at this year’s tournament, and Saturday’s result has merely heightened expectations among supporters ahead of this weekend’s trip to Wales.

And Dalziel takes confidence from the fact they were able to beat one of the world’s top teams while playing some way short of their best.

“They were special moments on Saturday, with a full Murrayfield singing and supporting the lads as they came off the field, seeing them lift the Calcutta Cup,” he said.

“That’s special and they enjoyed that, but realistically we didn’t actually play well. It was a pretty scrappy game.

“It’s exciting that we know we can still play a lot better. Looking at the stats, from being a team that usually dominates possession we had to live off scraps at the weekend. We put some great moments together and we took some opportunities despite the weather.

“The players are very grounded. They know they can get better.

“The game at the weekend will have done us a lot of good because there were areas where we were second best, and that’s the exciting part about growing into the competition.

“We can work on all the stuff that was killing us and we can fix a few things this weekend.

“Wales away is one of the most formidable challenges so this presents an opportunity for us to develop and grow as a team and take another step forward. We’ll need to be better against Wales this weekend.”

Scotland beat Wales behind closed doors in