“As a youngster you watch the international games on television, especially the Scotland-England games, and it’s incredibly difficult to remember a Scotland win at Twickenham It must be such an awesome place. But who knows? Who knows? We’ll certainly give it our best shot.”What about the shots from the opposition, though? Paterson will be the last line of defence against an England attack that has scored 16 tries and 124 points in two Six Nations mismatches thus far this season. Not that prospect is troubling the impressively assured young Borderer. Quite the opposite, in fact.”Och, I think it’s very exciting,” Paterson said “That’s the first thing that springs to mind.

I think if you face such a strong English team then the excitement can only come through.”We’re thoroughly looking forward to it The word ‘worry’ doesn’t come into it England are obviously an awesome outfit. They seem to have strengths in every department.”Iain Balshaw is an awesome prospect. We played against each other in the under-21 game two or three years ago and even then he was an exciting player. I was playing stand-off that day – he was at full-back – and I think he actually went past me to score in the corner, so I know how quick he is.”As individuals, the England backs are all extremely talented players, but it’s the impact they have as a whole that makes them so threatening in attack. Their defence is incredible too – the white wall of defence, we call it.”But in Scotland-England games the form book does tend to go out of the window on the day We’re going to Twickenham to give it absolutely everything. Anything can happen.”If the Scots are to storm England’s fortress, though, they will need to make an offensive impact. And their chief weapon is likely to be their 22-year-old full-back, whose searing pace (Paterson has been timed at 5.77sec for 50 metres) has produced three tries out of the Andy Irvine manual in 11 international appearances.The first was a blistering 40m break that left Christian Cullen clutching thin Auckland air in Scotland’s 48-14 defeat against the All Blacks at Eden Park last July.

The second was a galloping long-range overlap in the 53-6 win against the United States at Murrayfield in November. And the third was the dazzling score from halfway that inspired Scotland’s fightback, from 25-6 down, against Wales at Murrayfield a fortnight ago.That last effort caught the eye of Graham Henry in more ways than one. It was no surprise when Paterson’s name appeared in the New Zealander’s list of potential Lions. And if the Edinburgh Reiver makes it on to the summer tour down under it will be a family first for Scotland’s last line.Uncle Dunc missed the cut for the 1971 Lions squad.

But, then, the Scottish scrum-half who was the scourge of the English did have Chico Hopkins and a certain Gareth Edwards to contend with.. Tomorrow’s England-Scotland Calcutta Cup match will definitely go ahead, rugby union bosses said today. Tomorrow’s England-Scotland Calcutta Cup match will definitely go ahead, rugby union bosses said today.
The Rugby Football Union confirmed the Six Nations game has not fallen foul of the foot-and-mouth outbreak.It follows the announcement that Wales’ scheduled Millennium Stadium clash against Ireland tomorrow is cancelled.An RFU spokesman said: “Tomorrow’s game is definitely on.”. As Andrei Medvedev was saying, his play fluctuates according to his mood. As Andrei Medvedev was saying, his play fluctuates according to his mood.
Yesterday the 26-year-old Ukrainian seemed nervous, and his errors contributed hugely towards a 6-1, 6-2 defeat by Russia’s Marat Safin, theNo 1 seed, in the quarter-finals of the Dubai Duty Free Open.Safin, who plays Sweden’s Thomas Johansson today for a place in the final, is close to supplanting Brazil’s Gustavo Kuerten at the head of the ATP entry system.Today’s other semi-final is between Juan Carlos Ferrero, the Spanish No 7 seed, who eliminated the second seed Magnus Norman, of Sweden, 6-2, 4-6, 6-4, and Slovakia’s Dominik Hrbaty, the No 6 seed, who defeated Lars Burgsmüller, a German qualifier, 7-5, 6-4.For Medvedev, who defeated the 21-year-old Safin in their two previous matches, yesterday’s 53-minute encounter was an embarrassing blip in his latest comeback from injury.But he admitted he had known worse moments, like eating his words at Wimbledon last year, including the calorific line: “A snobbish English club with a bullshit attitude.” Tim Phillips, the Wimbledon chairman, who was attending the French Open last June when Medvedev delivered his tirade at Roland Garros, contacted Medvedev on his mobile phone and invited him for coffee on the Champs-Elysées. They discussed Medvedev’s complaints, the chief of which was that he felt some players were treated better than the rest and there was to much red tape over the wearing of accreditation badges.The chairman assured him that the Club’s newly completed Millennium Building would cater to the needs of all the players – and when Medvedev saw it for himself he wished he had never opened his mouth.”I feel guilty that I said such hard things,” he said, “because obviously the work wasn’t done right after the French Open, it had been prepared for the whole year. For some reason, no one knew that we were coming into such wonderful new facilities.

All we knew was that some new building was being built.”When I arrived and saw everything – oh, my God – it was one of the most positive experiences of my life. Wimbledon has done a fantastic job.”Everything is impressive – the beautiful locker-rooms, the training facilities, the warmth of the people.”I have to thank Tim Phillips for his understanding. From being one of the worst tournaments for players to be in – not in terms of history or meaning, just facilities – it has become one of the best, maybe the best.” Although red-faced about his outburst in Paris, Medvedev inevitably found humour in the situation. “I can name at least 10 players who actually came up to me and shook my hand and said, ‘Hey, thank you for the extra badges’, like I personally organised it – and two of those players had never said hello to me on the tour. I joked with them: ‘Just let me know what you need at the US Open’.”"I’m going to work on my serve and volley game so I can stay there longer,” he said. Medvedev injured his right foot shortly after Wimbledon last year and was out of the game until November. He said he would probably quit if he had another bad year.Medvedev was ineffective against Safin yesterday.