Don't be seduced by the Calcutta Cup second half, it masks Scotland's grim failings
The danger when reviewing Scotland’s Six Nations championship is that the dizzying second half at Twickenham erases the horror of the first and the grim failings that came before it. In the opening half-hour in London, England rampaged through what vaguely passed for a Scottish line as though rushing at tackle bags and Scotland flapped about defensively with the coordination of blind pigeons.
It was mortifying stuff, a rugby apocalypse on steroids. Quite how Scotland could become so fabulous after capitulating so quickly and flat-lining so meekly is hard to fathom. It is also rather a fitting metaphor for a campaign that delivered the spectacular and the maddening, and ended on that most bizarre wave of pride and disappointment.
Defensive frailties
Scotland shipped 17 tries this tournament, the most they have conceded in a Six Nations for 14 years. Given that period encompasses some of the darkest campaigns and most hideous days in Scottish rugby history – 51-3 in Cardiff, 61-21 at Twickenham, a 37-17 Murrayfield hosing by Italy – that’s a desperate statistic.
Too often, the Scottish line has been punctured. Too many times, poor decisions have been made and punished, a player rushing up too far, a man biting in when he should stay wide, a one-on-one tackle missed.
On Saturday, England’s four first-half tries were comically easy, like watching ants trying to fell a herd of stampeding elephants. Wales made five visits to the Scottish 22 at Murrayfield, left with points three times and struck the post with a penalty on a fourth. France made 17 line-breaks in Paris. Ireland were hardly flying on their trip to Edinburgh but canny enough to score three tries and smother their way to a win. Even Italy, sickness-ridden and a pale shadow of the team they became later in the tournament, ran in a late treble of scores against the Scots.
Gregor Townsend spoke at Twickenham about individuals lurching out of alignment rather than trusting the system. There was ferocious second-half tackling that almost – almost – closed out the most astonishing of victories. The hope is that with more time in the saddle for his rookie Test backs, these mistakes will diminish, but in the present, Scotland’s defensive record makes for painful – and unacceptable – reading.
Coming of age
Any team, let alone one with only two pro-sides to draw upon, would struggle with the kind of body count Scotland had to manage.
So much prime cattle on the sidelines. A pre-tournament injury list of 20 and with each passing round, another big player added to the heap of invalids. John Barclay, their captain, missed the entire tournament. So did Duncan Taylor, Mark Bennett, Matt Scott and Richie Gray. Hamish Watson started one game, Stuart Hogg, Ryan Wilson, Sam Skinner and Huw Jones two, and Sean Maitland and WP Nel three. Tommy Seymour, Blair Kinghorn and Jamie Ritchie were all crocked for the Twickenham fiasco.
That’s heinously bad fortune, but it has opened the door to burgeoning talent.
Ritchie, Edinburgh’s snarling flanker, seized his opportunity. If he can replicate the kind of barnstorming surges seen at Twickenham, Magnus Bradbury could become the ball-carrying behemoth Scotland are crying out for.
Sam Johnson has been a stupendous addition in midfield with his guile, handling and defensive ferocity. He had a particularly sore opening in London but recovered spectacularly, lacerating England’s line, bamboozling and then detonating the covering defence en route to a try for the ages. That’s the sort of resilience and ruthlessness Scotland need.
And in Darcy Graham, what a turbo-charged star Townsend has on his hands. Felling this fearless little bloke is like trying to tackle a tornado. Graham’s Hawick origins are also important. There’s something unique in the make-up of the Borderer, an almost intangible grit and nastiness and menace that tends to produce particularly unflinching rugby players.
Scotland’s great rugby heartland has withered with the onset of the professional game, but Graham is a beacon of encouragement to the next generation and at a time where roughly half of his team-mates at Twickenham learned their rugby outside of Scotland, an apt reminder of the talent emerging at home.
Wasteful attack
Scotland made more metres with ball in hand than any other team this championship. Leaving aside that bonkers evening at Twickenham, they scored only eight tries from their glut of yards, averaging a little better than one try per 11 minutes of attacking ball.
There have been tear-your-hair-out moments of criminal butchery. Dropped passes, blown overlaps, silly infringements. Their error count against Ireland was grotesque, meaning they didn’t make it into the away 22 once after half-time. They had the ball in the French red zone 11 times in Paris but left with points only twice. They weren’t cute or ruthless enough to put Wales away. Despite laying siege to the champions’ line, deep down, you struggled to convince yourself they were going to breach it, much less hold on to any winning position.
Their 14-try tournament haul is as high as they have mustered in the Six Nations – it’s all very well tossing away the shackles when 31-7 down, but Scotland have the ominous look of a team who continually let their opponents scramble to safety when they have a foot on their throats.
The exasperating thing is that when they get it right, Scotland are wondrously – often outrageously – brilliant to watch.
Their first-phase howitzer against Wales. Finn Russell’s glorious cross-kick for Kinghorn against Italy, a try and a game that seems a lifetime ago now. Any of their six Calcutta Cup tries were worthy of the All Blacks and – barring a madcap Barbarians game – their 38-point haul is the highest score an away side has posted at Twickenham since South Africa walloped England 11 years ago. These were delicious, firecracker tries, but they count for little in defeat.
World-class Russell holds the key
How Scotland have longed for a play-maker of Russell’s calibre, a man talented enough to bamboozle any defence in the game and fearless enough to trust his skills when it matters most.
Russell is a world-class pivot and his brilliance is growing at Racing 92. The maverick streak remains but the hair-brained errors that often accompanied it have been in short supply.
Of Scotland’s 14 championship tries, Russell scored one, put team-mates in for four others with passes or kicks and his fingerprints were evident on five more.
His importance cannot be understated. Of all the 60-plus players Townsend has selected, and those he will hope to cap before the World Cup, Russell is the one he can least afford to lose.
Away-day blues
You still can’t hang your hat on this team to slay the big beasts of the championship, even less so on the road. Scotland last won in Cardiff in 2002, in Paris 20 years ago, in Dublin in 2010 and, of course, at Twickenham in 1983, a time when none of the current squad had drawn breath and Townsend had just turned 10. In 40 away Tests against Wales, Ireland, England and France since the Five Nations became six, Scotland have won two and drawn one.
It’s a pitiful return. You can’t be as inconsistent and infuriating as Scotland – with your top players or without them – and expect to announce yourselves as title contenders.
Scotland didn’t have an Alun Wyn Jones or a Peter O’Mahony this year, a standard-setting colossus who inspired those around them. John Barclay can be that man, but at 32, after almost a year on the sidelines, he will not be around forever.
Townsend will have learned plenty about his team and the state it is in six months from Japan. He will be deeply heartened by their flair and their character in London and deeply troubled by much else. The hope is that the heavy-hitters – the Hoggs, the Barclays, the Joneses – are revving again come September, and the prayer that Russell comes through the tail-end of a bruising Top 14 season unscathed. The jaw-dropping finale might paper over a crack or two, but the reality is that Scotland still have a long way to go.
Comments on RugbyPass
Did the highlanders party too hard before the game? They were the pits.
1 Go to commentsWhat a player! Not long until he’s in the England side, surely?
1 Go to commentsHe seems to have the same aura as Marcus Smith - by which I mean he’s consistently judged as if he’s several years younger than he actually is. Mngomezulu has played 24 times for the Stormers. When Pollard was his age he had played 24 times for South Africa! He has more time to develop, but he has also had time to do some developing already, and he hasn’t demonstrated nearly as much talent in that time as one would expect. If he is a generational talent, then it must be a pretty poor generation.
4 Go to commentsThe greatest Springbok coach of all time is entirely on the money. Rassie and Jacques have given the south african public a great few years, but the success of the springbok selection policy will need to be judged in light of what comes next. The poor condition that the provincial system is currently in doesn’t bode well for the next few years of international rugby, and the insane 2026 schedule that the Boks have lined up could also really harm both provincial and international consistency.
16 Go to commentsJake White is a brilliant coach and a master in the press. This is another masterclass in media relations and PR but its also a very narrow view with arguments that dont always hold water. White wants his team to win, he wants the best players in SA and wants his team competitive. You however have to face up to the reality of a poor exchange rate and big clubs with big budgets. SA Rugby cant compete and unless it can find more money SA players will keep leaving regardless of Springbok eligibility and this happened in 2015 - 2017. Also rugby is not cricket. Cricket has 3 formats and T20 cricket is where the money is at. When it comes to club vs country the IPL is king but that wont happen because the international calendar does not clash with the club calendar in rugby. So the argument about rugby going down the same path as cricket is really a non-starter
16 Go to commentsNZ rugby seem not to have learnt anything from professional rugby. Super rugby was dying and SA left before they died with the competition. SA rugby did a u turn on their approach to international players playing overseas and such players are now selected for Bok teams. As much as each country would love to retain their players playing in local competitions, this is the way the world is evolving my friends. Move with it or stay 20 years behind the times. One more thing. NZ rugby hierarchy think they are the big cheese. Take a more humble approach guys. You do not seem to have your players best interests at heart.
3 Go to commentsBeaches? In Cardiff? Where?
1 Go to commentsHe is right , the Crusaders will be a threat. Scott Barrett, ( particularly), Fergus Burke , Codie Taylor, ( from sabbatical) etc due back soon for the Crusaders. There are others like Zach Gallagher too. People can right the Crusaders off, Top 8 , here we come !!
1 Go to commentsWe will always struggle for money to match the other sides but the least the WRU can do is invest properly in Welsh rugby. Too much has been squandered on vanity projects like the hotel and roof walk amongst others which will never see a massive return. Hanging the 4 pro sides out to dry over the last decade is now coming back to bite the WRU financially as well as on the pitch. You reap what you sow.
1 Go to commentsWhat do you get if you cross a doctor with a fish? A plastic sturgeon
14 Go to commentsWhat happened to feleti Kaitu’u? Hasnt played in a while right?
1 Go to commentsGregor I just can’t agree with you. You are trying to find something that just isn’t there. Jordie Barrett has signed until 2028. By the end of that he would have spent probably 11-12 years on Super Rugby and you say he can’t possibly have one season playing somewhere else. It is absurd. What about this scenario, the NZR play hard ball and he decides to leave and play overseas. How would that affect the competition. There seems to be an agenda by certain journalists to push certain agendas and don’t like it when it’s not to their liking. I fully support the NZR on this. Gregor needs to get a life.
3 Go to commentsHope he stays as believe he can do a great job.
1 Go to commentsMake what step up? Manie has a World Cup winner’s medal around his neck and changed the way the Springboks can play. He doesn’t have anything to prove to anyone. The win record of the Boks with him in the team is tremendous. Sacha can be wonderful and I hope he has a very succesful Bok career, but comparing him to Manie in terms of the next Bok flyhalf is very strange. Manie is the incumbent (not the next) and doing pretty incredibly.
4 Go to comments00 😍 U
1 Go to commentsSabbaticals have helped keep NZ’s very best talent in the country on long term deals - this fact has been left out of this article. Much like the articles calling to allow overseas players to be selected, yet can only name one player currently not signed to NZR who would be selected for the ABs. And in the entire history of NZ players leaving to play overseas, literally only 4 or 5 have left in their prime as current ABs. (Piatau, Evans, Hayman, Mo’unga,?) Yes Carter got an injury while playing in France 16 years ago, but he also got a tournament ending injury at the 2011 World Cup while taking mid-week practice kicks at goal. Maybe Jordie gets a season-ending injury while playing in Ireland, maybe he gets one next week against the Brumbies. NZR have many shortcomings, but keeping the very best players in the country and/or available for ABs selection is not one of them. Likewise for workload management - players missing 2 games out of 14 is hardly a big deal in the grand scheme of things. Again let’s use some facts - did it stop the Crusaders winning SR so many times consecutively when during any given week they would be missing 2 of their best players? The whole idea of the sabbatical is to reward your best players who are willing to sign very long term deals with some time to do whatever they want. They are not handed out willy-nilly, and at nowhere near the levels that would somehow devalue Super Rugby. In this particular example JB is locked in with NZR for what will probably (hopefully) be the best years of his career, hard to imagine him not sticking around for a couple more after for a Lions tour and one more world cup. He has the potential to become the most capped AB of all time. A much better outcome than him leaving NZ for a minimum of 3 years at the age of 27, unlikely to ever play for the ABs again, which would be the likely alternative.
3 Go to commentsJake White talks more sense than anything I've read in the last 5 years. Hope someone's listening.
16 Go to commentsThe Springboks tried going down the road of only picking home-based players and it was an unmitigated disaster in 2016 and 2017. Picking overseas-based players has been one of the main reason the Boks have done so well since 2018, not only because of the quality Rassie could call on, but because of the knowledge and experience those players brought into camp from England, France and Japan. With some of the big names playing abroad it also gave younger players in SA the chance to break through at franchise level. Would we have seen the emergence of a Ruan Nortje if RG and Lood were still at the Bulls? Not so sure. I understand why Jake would want to block players leaving since his job depends on good results but it’s an approach that would take Bok rugby back to the bad old days and no South African wants to see that.
16 Go to commentsExeter were thumped by 38 points. And they only had to hop on a train.
39 Go to commentsI am De Groot.
1 Go to comments