Upbeat Scotland eye Dragons slaying

Head coach Frank Hadden today names the side he believes can put Scotland’s RBS 6 Nations campaign back to winning ways.

Hadden will announce his line-up for Saturday’s Murrayfield clash against Wales at 11am, with forwards Nathan Hines and Allister Hogg both firmly in contention to face Gareth Jenkins’ side.

Australia-born lock Hines has been out of action since March last year after breaking a bone in his foot playing for Perpignan in their Heineken Cup victory over Castres.

Flanker Hogg sustained medial knee ligament damage in early November, but returned to the Scotland bench for the Six Nations opener against England.

Former hooker Kenny Milne believes Scotland have every chance of putting their first Six Nations points on the board by beating the Welsh, but only if they stamp their mark on the contest early on.

Milne, a member of the Five Nations grand slam team in 1990, said: “I think they’ve got to dominate possession more.

“They didn’t win enough ball from the backs to give England cause for concern.”

Back-row forward Simon Taylor should win his 50th cap this weekend.

The 27-year-old has endured the pain and misery of two serious knee injuries during his career, yet joins the elite band of players to have reached the caps milestone, and does so at a young age.

Milne, who coached Taylor at Heriot’s, said: “It’s a fantastic achievement and he would have won a lot more [caps] if it wasn’t for the amount of injuries he’d had.

“When I had him under my charge at Heriot’s, even then he was a stand-out talent.”

Home support will be a factor and Hadden’s side will seek to work that to their advantage.

The head coach is eager to see Scotland show as much passion for the battle as they have demonstrated when discussing it this week, during team meetings which have been considered highly productive.

The 42-20 defeat at Twickenham last weekend has been written off as a bad day for Scottish rugby, and Hadden’s team intend to begin their campaign afresh on Saturday.

Hadden said: “I expect that we will have a more stable platform this weekend, as anybody would expect playing at home and not at Twickenham, and so I expect there to be more opportunities to play.

“I felt, with the limited opportunities we had to play last week, we were starting to get quite clever and showed some good rhythm.

“Hopefully, we’ll get more opportunities this week and, as a result, we will see some more from our side.”

He added: “There is a hunger to get better among the players. That is exciting, and it gives me so much optimism.

“Let’s not expect miracles straight away, but we know we are good enough to win this game this week.”