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Hamilton hails Brewer`s input

Tuesday 18th November 2008

Brewer's 'no fear policy': Jim Hamilton takes on Victor Matfield in the air

Lock Jim Hamilton has paid tribute to the influence new forwards coach Mike Brewer has had on the Scotland pack.

The former All Blacks captain - along with backs coach Sean Lineen and defensive expert Graham Steadman - has worked with the squad for the first time during the autumn Tests.

And although Scotland have lost both games, the forwards have impressed, especially against the much-vaunted South Africa eight on Saturday.

Indeed, the home pack were dominant throughout the first half and from a succession of drives in the Springbok 22, Hamilton's second row partner Nathan Hines crashed over to give Scotland a 10-0 lead at the break.

The world champions fought back after the break though, helped significantly by five penalties in quick succession, and edged to a 14-10 victory.

But Hamilton, who moved to Edinburgh from Leicester in the summer, is adamant Brewer and Scotland are on the right track.

"Mike is very technical. He's played the game at the highest level so he knows what it takes to succeed, especially against Southern Hemisphere teams," he said.

"He's brought a no fear policy in, as well as lots of experience. He's brought some great ideas and is very strict in the contact area because that's where he feels it is won and lost.

"If you win the contact area and obviously the set piece you probably win the game.

"You've got to remember we've had new moves and new line-out calls to get used to and that was just the second game using them whereas South Africa have been using theirs for two years or more."

The Swindon-born lock does however admit that Scotland need to turn promising positions and forward dominance into results against the rugby powerhouses.

After Saturday's Test against Canada, it will be just two months until the start of the 2009 Six Nations, a tournament Scotland are desperate to excel in.

"We've got to start winning games. We lost that game by four points but we should have won it by four points," said Hamilton.

"We had a poor Six Nations in 2008 and it seems to be excuse after excuse. There's going to have to come a time when we win these games.

"We've worked very hard on our set piece. South Africa are probably the best set-piece team in the world and we matched them in the scrum and credit to Euan Murray, Ross Ford and Allan Jacobsen for that.

"The more we play and train together the better. We matched them up front but we can't be relying on three points here and there to win big games like this."

Hamilton was also honest enough to concede that the failure to beat South Africa - and therefore drop into the third tier of seeds for the 2011 World Cup - was a significant blow.

"The World Cup pool draw will hit home further down the line. Everyone is aware of it but we were just concentrating on beating South Africa in a Test," he said.

"So I'm sure we'll look at when it comes and it'll probably mean a bigger challenge to us but come the World Cup hopefully we can go on to bigger and better things."