I blundered in Wales, admits Scotland's Chris Cusiter

Published on Tuesday 23 February 2010 22:26

SCOTLAND captain Chris Cusiter has accepted that he was wrong to decide to keep the ball alive for the final play of the game against Wales.

• "If we had that time again we'd put the ball dead or put it short and finish the game off" Chris Cusiter

Cusiter told Mike Blair to restart the match by sending the ball downfield, when a kick straight to touch would have ended the contest with the score tied at 24-24. Wales gathered Blair's kick, keeping the ball alive, and scored a converted try to win 31-24.

The incident, which occurred when Scotland were two men down after Scott Lawson and Phil Godman had been sinbinned, was not the focus of as much post-match attention as it would have been in other circumstances. The condition of Thom Evans and Chris Paterson, both of whom had been hospitalised by injuries, was of far greater concern.

Now, the best part of a fortnight later, and with the squad having undergone a debriefing on the game in Cardiff, Cusiter has acknowledged it would have been better to send the ball out of play and settle for a draw.

"I don't think it was the right thing to do," he said of the restart.

"We were down to 13 men. Everyone was out on their feet. If we had that time again we'd put the ball dead or put it short and finish the game off. "

The justification after the match was that an offence by Wales might give Scotland a penalty from which they could win the match, but that was an over-optimistic reading of a contest which by that time had swung firmly in the home team's favour. As he looked forward to his team's third RBS Six Nations Championship match in Rome on Saturday, Cusiter said the squad were determined to learn from the mistakes they had made against the Welsh, in addition to building on the positive aspects of that match. "(In the debrief] we looked at the decisions that were made. We have to learn from that, and become better players and better leaders because of that.

"I don't think we'll come into exactly that same situation again, but there are certain parts of those last ten minutes that we can definitely learn lessons from. We've spoken with Andy (Robinson, the Scotland coach] about various situations, handling different things in different ways, and managing that period of time differently.

"So we can certainly learn lessons from that. We plan to. We have to – if we're going to improve then we have to learn those lessons."

Italy, like Scotland, have lost their first two matches, but emerged with some credit from their last game, a narrow defeat by England. Cusiter believes that Scotland can learn how not to play against the Italians from that match.

"We don't want to get dragged into an arm-wrestle. The teams that have done that have struggled against them. They're very, very physical, very strong defensively, and if the ball slows down at all it's very difficult to do anything.

"That's certainly our focus. We watched the England game and how they played. They made a number of line breaks when they started to increase the pace and get quick ball. Italy's scrambled defence is very good so they only managed to finish one of them off. So it's not a case of getting into an arm-wrestle with them. Very few teams would beat them doing that.

"Scotland haven't won a lot of times over in Rome – Italy have won three of the five games of the times we've played there in the Six Nations, so it's not an easy place to go. The only time I've won there was 2006, and it was a last-minute penalty from Chris Paterson. That was a Scotland team that had beaten France and England that season, so it's a really difficult place to go.

"England had a very tough match against them last week, and only got away from them with a (Jonny] Wilkinson drop-goal. That's what we're expecting – they're massively proud and they'll fight to the last second.

"Nobody goes over to Rome and smashes Italy. The All Blacks played against them in November in front of 80,000 – and although they won, and got themselves slightly away, they never smashed them as you might expect.

"They'll be massively fired up for it as they always are playing against Scotland. They target this game as a game they think they can win.

"Playing at home they're hugely proud. They have that Latin temperament and will be so determined to defend their home ground.

"It's just about us imposing our game plan on them. The way we've played in this championship so far, we want quick ball and we've tried to move it around and get our big runners in the game.

"That's worked really well for us in certain parts of the games that we've played. We got two really good tries against Wales off the back of that quick ball and that's how we're going to try and play.

"We're certainly not going to change our game plan and try and match them at their kind of game. They're a very solid team and their defence is very good. They don't miss many tackles. In and around the ruck as well is a real strong point for them with the front five that they have. It's not rocket science to say we don't want to meet them head-on there."

After playing two matches in a week – a home defeat on a Sunday by France was followed by the Wales game on the Saturday – the Scotland squad were grateful for a break last week.

Not only did they have a chance to rest themselves, more importantly they were also able to take stock of the injuries to their colleagues, in particular the one which left Evans requiring two operations.

"After the game we found how serious his injury was," Cusiter recalled. "Myself, Allan (Jacobsen] and Dan (Parks] went to see him on Sunday morning.

"That really put the result into perspective, seeing Thom. There are things that are more important than a rugby game, important as it is to us. That was a really tough thing to see, and all of our thoughts immediately went to Thom and Chris for their recoveries."

Paterson is now out of hospital, and Evans, whose brother Max is in the team to play Italy, is expected home later this week after making a significant improvement. "We've been getting updates from Max," Cusiter said. "I think everything is going as well as it can at the moment, which is good news. I think (Thom] is hoping to be back up in Scotland later in the week possibly."