Allan Massie: ‘We dwell more on our players’ weaknesses than their strengths’

YOU usually need a bit of luck, along with skill, strength and resolution to win a Grand Slam, and Wales had it. Specifically, in the dying minutes of their first match in Dublin, they drew the winning card when Stephen Ferris was penalised for what referee Wayne Barnes deemed a dangerous tip-tackle, bang in front of the Irish posts.

Leigh Halfpenny – one of the outstanding players of the tournament – duly kicked the goal, and Wales were on their way. If Ferris had kept his head, how different the season would have been.

Wales deserved the title because they were probably the best team, and certainly the most consistent. England also came close to beating them, though to dwell, as some English writers have done, on the piece of opportunist play which, thanks also to a fortunate bounce of the ball, gave Jonathan Davies the winning try is to ignore the fact that a few minutes earlier the same Davies spurned a two-man overlap in the England 22. Overall, Wales played a lot of good rugby, though they got less adventurous the longer the tournament went on: five tries in their first two games, only three in the next three.

England began feebly and should have lost at Murrayfield, and probably in Rome too. But they improved consistently and finished by inflicting a crushing defeat on Ireland. They showed almost nothing behind the scrum and won’t do so till their centres, Brad Barritt and Manu Tuilaigi, learn, or remember, to pass the ball. The dominance of their scrum against Ireland was remarkable. Sadly, it was also evidence that there is something very wrong with either the scrum laws or referees’ interpretation of them. England treated the scrum not as a way of getting quick ball to their backs, but as a means of winning a penalty.

The postponement of the France-Ireland game, on February 11, condemned both countries to playing internationals on four successive weekends. Not surprisingly, Ireland were feeling the effects by the time they came to Twickenham. France may also have been doing so in Cardiff, though this was less certain because they dominated the second half, and their defeat owed much to Philippe Saint-Andre’s misguided belief that Lionel Beauxis is an international fly-half. Beauxis, billed as a kicking machine, missed the last six drop goals he attempted in the tournament. Is this a record?

Italy were, well, Italy: good forwards, poor backs, tough to beat in Rome – too tough for Scotland, alas – weak away.

As for Scotland, one of our tendencies over the years has been to dwell on players’ weaknesses rather than their strengths. We tend to forget that nobody’s perfect. Tommy Bowe, for instance, is the best and cleverest attacking wing in the Six Nations, but he is not a great tackler, and sometimes a feeble one. Would this persuade Declan Kidney to drop him? Certainly not; his virtues outweigh his deficiencies.

I mention this because a lot of attention has been given to missed tackles by Greig Laidlaw and Lee Jones, which cost us tries. Fair enough; both players made mistakes. Yet, overall, both were on the credit side. Another TMO might have given Laidlaw the try he claimed against England. He did score against Wales, albeit from his old scrum-half position, and it was his alert change of direction which initiated the movement that led to Stuart Hogg’s try against France.

Jones gave Hogg the scoring pass for that try and, in the same game, scored one himself, played a key role in Hogg’s wrongly disallowed try in Cardiff and was on hand to score against Ireland if Richie Gray hadn’t chosen to make a fool of Rob Kearney with his dummy.

As for the missed tackles, several people have opined that Laidlaw and Jones are too small to play international rugby. This is nonsense. Tackling is a matter of timing and technique, not size. Anyone who doubts this should watch a replay of the World Cup semi-final between France and Wales, in which Morgan Parra, a scrum-half playing at fly-half, timing his tackles right and going in hard and low, time and again felled Jamie Roberts as he attempted to breach the gain-line. Parra stands 1 metre 80 and weighs 78 kg; Roberts 1.93 and weighs 110kg. In other words Parra was giving away some five inches in height and more than four stone in weight. Both Laidlaw and Jones are good tacklers but technique and timing let them down on the occasions mentioned.

There are few players who don‘t occasionally miss a tackle, though some misses are more conspicuous than others. Scott Hastings was usually a rock in defence, possibly the best defensive centre Scotland has had in most people’s memory, and we all remember his marvellous try-saving tackle on Rory Underwood in the 1990 Grand Slam match, remember it certainly more clearly than the one he missed, which let Jerry Guscott in to score England’s only try in that titanic struggle.