Scotland 6 - 24 Wales: Mental frailties let down sorry Scotland

Published on Sunday 13 February 2011 21:17

IT would be easy to study this dire 80 minutes from Scotland in their second RBS Six Nations match and suggest the team had precious few rugby skills, so poor were they at simply passing to a team-mate that the final error count of 19 appeared generous, but we have seen enough over the past year to know that this should not be true.

They are patently more talented than was witnessed at Murrayfield on Saturday, but many of the 60,000 who turned up for the match, and millions more who watched on television, will have had their faith tested by a performance that offered heaps of disappointment and precious little encouragement.

How did this bunch of players turn in their worst team performance in navy jerseys and finish the match as mental wrecks, apologising to all and sundry and searching in vain to understand how the flickers of promise from defeat in France on the opening weekend could turn to ashes so easily?

The first 30 minutes of this game wrap up the story. These were two teams heading for the kick-off at Murrayfield with something to prove, the Welsh players even acknowledging it with dark humour by playing the song 'Under Pressure' on the team bus in response to coming into this match without a win in eight games.

Scotland did not seem to be under the same pressure, having won five of their last seven Tests and, in Paris, finally uncovering a way to scoring tries. But when this game started in the same jaw-dropping fashion to that against France, Scotland losing their first scrum and subsequently the game's opening try, pressure seemed to grip Alastair Kellock's men. Nerves had been visible before then. Kelly Brown had knocked on, Hugo Southwell had sclaffed a kick to touch and Dan Parks had a clearance kick charged down by loosehead prop Paul James in the opening minutes, the start of Scotland's obsession with handing over possession.

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Still, they had the put-in at a scrum on the edge of their 22. The first one went down, and was re-set. The ball came into the second, bounced off a Scottish leg to the Welsh side, and Wales wheeled Scotland round for No 8 Ryan Jones to pick up and attack space where the home back row should have been.

Scotland defended well initially, but then Welsh fly-half James Hook spotted a gap between two forwards, Richie Vernon and Allan Jacobsen, glided into it, handing off Scotland's loosehead prop, drawing the covering Rory Lawson, and feeding the try-hungry Shane Williams, who dived over the line. Hook converted; seven points up after seven minutes.

The Welsh felt relief, the Scots dj vu.

Southwell kicked feebly to touch again, and a promising attack crashed when Jacobsen dropped the ball and then Lawson knocked on. Parks put in a good tackle on Jamie Roberts, the 6ft 4in 17-stone centre who had made the first of several bee-lines for his 14-stone Cardiff team-mate, but still Wales earned a penalty for offside against Brown and Hook made it 10-0.

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• Follow our Six Nations coverage on TwitterScotland's lineout was good, stealing two and losing none in all, but two more penalties turned another Scotland attack into three more points for Hook and then Southwell committed the sin of taking out Lee Byrne in mid-air - all too similar to the stupidity of prop Geoff Cross on the same player two years ago. Byrne was quickly back on his feet and Southwell somehow escaped a yellow card, but was taken off for stitches to a cheek cut by Byrne's studs.

His replacement, Sean Lamont, made a great impression, running hard at Wales and creating platforms with his aggressive play, and Southwell remained in the dressing room. Still the penalties came - Scotland conceded nine to Wales' 12 - and Hook finished the first quarter kicking Wales 16-0 in front.

And then what seemed like a stunning burst of Scottish hope on the horizon turned out to be a demoralising mirage. Wales were reduced to 13 men when lock Bradley Davies was sin-binned for ending a great Lamont attack by knocking the ball out of a ruck as he retreated close to his line, and then Byrne followed four minutes later for tackling Max Evans around his neck and not letting go.

But where Scotland required composure to hold possession and backs to hold their depth to exploit gaps, they rushed their play and made it easy for a spirited Welsh defence. A Parks dart ended with Ross Ford dropping an unexpected pass six metres out, Nikki Walker caught Parks' crossfield kick but held on to it rather than risk a toss to Lamont, and after Parks salvaged three points with a penalty, another crossfield kick and promising attack by Lamont ended with centre Joe Ansbro losing a flat pass as he raced into the 22. Wales coach Warren Gatland said afterwards: "That was the game."

The Scots had established good territory and possession in that period against 13 men and even with Wales back to XV, still secured good ball thereafter, Moray Low improving the scrum in place of Euan Murray and Kellock fighting, literally at one point, to keep control in the lineout, but the confidence, composure and structure necessary to respond seemed to have been eviscerated in that first half-hour.

Wales deserve credit for their organised and wholehearted defence, which underlined a greater desperation to win this game. But even the Welsh agreed afterwards that the quality of play in this match was well below international class.Williams finished Scotland off as clinically as he had in Cardiff last year, a Scots turnover being latched on to and kicked from halfway by Jonathan Davies for the winger to scamper on and claim his sixth try against Scotland in just four Tests.

Scorers: Scotland: Pens: Parks 2. Wales: Tries: Williams 2; Pens: Hook 4; Con: Hook.

Scotland: H Southwell (Stade Francais); N Walker (Ospreys), J Ansbro (Northampton), N De Luca (Edinburgh), M Evans (Glasgow); D Parks (Cardiff Blues), R Lawson (Gloucester); A Jacobsen (Edinburgh), R Ford (Edinburgh), E Murray (Newcastle), N Hines (Leinster), A Kellock (Glasgow, capt), K Brown (Saracens), J Barclay (Glasgow), R Vernon (Glasgow). Subs: S Lamont (Llanelli Scarlets) for Southwell 20mins, M Blair (Edinburgh) for Lawson, M Low (Glasgow) for Murray both 47, S Lawson (Gloucester) for Ford, R Rennie (Edinburgh) for Barclay both 67, S MacLeod (Edinburgh) for Kellock 71.

Wales: L Byrne (Ospreys); M Stoddart (Llanelli Scarlets), J Roberts (Cardiff Blues), J Davies (Llanelli Scarlets), S Williams (Ospreys); J Hook (Ospreys), M Phillips (Ospreys); P James (Ospreys), M Rees (Llanelli Scarlets, captain), C Mitchell (Ospreys), B Davies (Cardiff Blues), A-W Jones (Ospreys), D Lydiate (Newport Gwent Dragons), S Warburton (Cardiff Blues), R Jones (Ospreys). Subs: J Thomas (Ospreys) for Lydiate 54mins, S Jones (Llanelli Scarlets) for Hook, J Yapp (Cardiff Blues) for James, both 66, J Turnbull (Llanelli Scarlets) for Wyn Jones 71, R Hibbard (Ospreys) for Rees, T Knoyle (Llanelli Scarlets) for Phillips, R Priestland (Llanelli Scarlets) for Byrne, all 76.