Borders rugby legend John Jeffrey calls on national teams to raise their game

Scottish Rugby Union board chairman Jeffrey issued that demand at the governing body’s 2022 annual general meeting, held at Edinburgh’s Murrayfield Stadium on Saturday, and promised better results soon.

“As my headmaster used to say in my end-of-term school report, could do better,” said the 63-year-old, capped 40 times for Scotland between 1984 and 1991. “My father scored out the ‘could’ and said ‘must do better’. What I will say today is we will do better.

“For the most part, our high-performance teams have flattered to deceive.

“We had some fantastic individual results, but a lack of consistency is frustrating for all our supporters.

“We need to develop a ruthless streak that is evident in all successful sporting environments.

“We have to be better at every level. We’ve invested an awful lot of money in all our high-performance teams and we need to get a return on that. We need to be stronger.

“We now expect to see better and more consistent outcomes. There has to be a rise in our ambition and associated standards of delivery.

“We need to develop a winning edge. All our teams need to develop a winning edge, and when we get into positions in games where we could be winning them, we should be winning them. We’ve got to see them out.

“​​​We’ve got to deliver a harder-edged mentality to all our performances at international and high-performance level.

“This is true across the board – in age-grade, pro teams and the men’s and women’s national teams.

“We must develop a winning habit that sees experimentation come to a close, ushering in an era of hard-edged, attractive rugby.”

Jeffrey’s call for improvement follows Scotland’s men’s side winning just two games at this year’s Six Nations, against England and Italy, and finishing fourth in the table, and their women’s team and male under-20s having whitewashes inflicted on them in their championships.