How Scotland's raw and honest rugby stars reacted to autumn defeats

Steyn doesn’t shy away from discussing the November series, and in particular the collapse against Argentina, but he would rather the squad did their talking on the pitch.

With admirable candour, he says the Scottish rugby public are sick of listening to them.

Gregor Townsend’s side squandered two big opportunities in the autumn at Murrayfield. Having trailed New Zealand 17-0 at half-time, they produced a scintillating spell to draw level at 17-17 only to be undone in the final six minutes by a try and a penalty from All Blacks super sub Damian McKenzie to give the visitors a 25-17 win.

A week later, Scotland led Argentina 21-0 but capitulated in the final 23 minutes, conceding five tries to lose 33-24 amid booing from the home crowd.

“Look, those results were well below par and well below where we wanted and what the people of Scotland want, and that was fair enough,” said Steyn who is expected to be one of the starting wingers when Townsend’s side open their Six Nations campaign against Italy at the Stadio Olimpico on Saturday.

“We had some really raw and honest conversations off the back of that. I think that was why we were so excited for the Six Nations to come around, because ultimately in Rome against Italy, that’s going to be the first time we’ll see whether we can deliver on what we said we were going to deliver on.”

Scottish public ‘are sick of us talking’

Steyn offered a frank assessment of where the squad were at after the Argentina game, pointedly bringing up the “golden generation” tag which has become a millstone for the current group. He questioned whether the players had “the marbles in the big moments” and returned to the theme last week during a break from training at Scotland’s Oriam base on the outskirts of Edinburgh.

"Well to be fair, I think the people of Scotland are sick of us talking about whatever it is we have been talking about,” he said. “Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to deliver results against top teams on a consistent enough basis. I think they deserve to see us doing something as opposed to just carrying on talking about it.

“It does pose a lot of pressure, but there’s a lot of pressure in this arena. Ultimately that’s why you’ve just got to put the focus on this game, just focus on what we need to do to get the ball rolling.”

Asked what they need to improve on for the Six Nations, Steyn added: “We’ve just got to be better under pressure. In both the New Zealand and Argentina games, we put ourselves in a position to win the game - and we didn’t win the game, which is just . . . . Unacceptable is a strong word, but I think that’s kind of how we feel, particularly with the Argentina game.

“Obviously there was probably a bit more nuance to the New Zealand game, but ultimately around 65 minutes in both games we had chances to win it and didn’t.

“I think we had to be really honest with ourselves about the fact that we probably didn’t have the tools in the chest to get it done under pressure. And I think that’s what we’re working on most, is confronting the fact that we’re going to face a lot of those moments in a big Six Nations campaign. And yeah, we just want to walk towards them and see how many of them we can come out on top of.”

Competition for the wing spots is fierce, with Glasgow’s Steyn, Jamie Dobie, Kyle Rowe and Edinburgh’s Duhan van der Merwe and Darcy Graham all fighting it out for the two places.

Steyn, who missed last season’s Six Nations through injury, looks certain to claim one of the berths. The other is likely to be filled by either Graham or Dobie.

“It’s fairly well documented now, the level of competition there is in that position,” said Steyn, who was outstanding as Glasgow claimed the scalps of Sale, Toulouse, Clermont and Saracens in the Champions Cup. “We’re all good mates with each other, all a good bunch of boys, so we understand the fact that there needs to be competition and we’re all pretty hungry for that, so it’s been a good start to the campaign.”