THIS was another opening-day defeat for Scotland in the Six Nations Championship, and another match that has to go down as an opportunity missed. If Finn Russell’s interception in the second half was the most obvious chance to turn the game round, there were also a number of basic errors that proved costly - and that have to be eliminated if we are to have a chance of beating Wales in Cardiff in five days’ time.
Despite the disappointment of Saturday’s 15-9 defeat by England, I don’t expect Vern Cotter to make more than one change for the Wales game. Blair Cowan has done well for him in the past, so he may come in instead of John Barclay. The ploy of playing two openside flankers against England was not particularly successful, so Cowan, who Cotter has said he regards as more of a natural No 6, could be brought into the team to adjust the balance of the back row.
Apart from that, and barring injuries, I expect everyone else to be given another chance. One or two players were obviously undercooked two days ago - Mark Bennett had not played for a month because of his shoulder injury, and David Denton was another who has not played much rugby recently - and with that one game under their belts, albeit an unsatisfactory game, I think we can realistically expect a better performance from them next time.
Besides, they are the best players available to the coach. Cotter’s selection for the Calcutta Cup was the correct one, and the players he chose for that match remain best placed to get it right next time round.
Still, having said that, it was clear from the start that the trip to Cardiff was always going to be really difficult. Defeat by England has simply made it tougher still.
We’ve not recorded a try against England at Murrayfield since Simon Danielli’s score in 2004, and we’ve not won an opening match in the Six Nations for almost as long, so getting off to a win in that game would have been a massive boost.
There was a lot of optimism before the game that this time round things would be different. That was not only because of the promise Scotland showed at the Rugby World Cup, where backs such as Bennett played so well, it was also because this was a new England side who had not played a single match, far less had time to settle into a particular style of play, under their new coach Eddie Jones.
But England put in a solid performance. Their team is made up of big, strong guys, and their No 8 Billy Vunipola and No 7 James Haskell gave them more go-forward from the back row than their opposite numbers were able to do for Scotland.
By contrast, Scotland’s performance seemed to take us back to where the team had been a couple of years ago. The lineout was good at times in the first half, but lost its way in the second half.
There were some basic errors when we were in possession in their 22, as Greig Laidlaw said after the game. And some of the players know they can do a lot better than this - Tommy Seymour, for example, had his poorest game for Scotland that I’ve seen, knocking on two or three times from kicks put up on him. Small mistakes like that may not have led directly to England scores, but they all add up to make a huge difference.
If you want to assess the game in a positive light, you can point to how close the score was despite those errors, and you can also look at an incident such as Russell’s interception and see how easily the score might have been different. Granted, there was a long way to go when the stand-off got possession, but if he had run on for a few paces and then passed to Stuart Hogg on his outside instead of kicking ahead, I think Hogg would probably have scored. Russell acknowledged as much by apologising to Hogg straight away, and it must have been agonising for them both to watch the ball go out of play after being kicked into the England half.
It was a blustery day, which made conditions difficult for the kickers, and Laidlaw was wide with a couple of efforts which on another afternoon would have gone between the pots. But these are the narrow margins that all add up in rugby to determine which team ends up on the winning side.
That’s what Scotland have to bear in mind as they look forward to the Wales game. It might have been portrayed as a massive win for England and a significant setback for Scotland, but there was less than a full score in it - and there were those frustrating moments when the match could have turned round.
Having said that, it will be extremely tough to get a result in Cardiff. The team will have to play out of their skins if they are to do it.
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