As Byron McGuigan seized his opportunity to step into the BT Murrayfield limelight we could only imagine what sort of humiliation the Wallabies might have been subjected to had the player who has done more than anyone to elevate Scottish rugby not dropped out less than half an hour before kick off to let the winger make his first Test start.
Eight tries for a Hogg-less Scotland as more than a half century of points was put past the third best team in the world was extraordinary and what was most striking on Saturday was the way the Scots went for the kill.
In the past they have tended to look squeamish at the sight of opposition blood, but instead this time they engaged in a Southern Hemisphere style feeding frenzy once they realised these wounded Wallabies were at their mercy. That chimes with the way Scotland’s style of play has been encouraged by their opponents, the New Zealand and Australian team managements having struck an almost evangelistic tone in welcoming it, seeming to feel that it has vindicated the missionary work they, as rugby nations, have embarked upon in seeking to attract converts to their philosophy on how the game should be played.
Read more: Gary Armstrong: Scots are in a great place for now but the Six Nations will be different
On Saturday Michael Cheika, whose dignity and sportsmanship had come under close scrutiny in the preceding seven days, but showed both in refusing to use the red card shown to Sione Kepu, when his side was leading 12-10 late in the first half as an excuse, offered his verdict on how the Scots have been progressing.
“They’ve obviously been advancing now since Vern came and brought the team on a long way and now the new coach has stepped in and brought something a little bit different as well,” he said, echoing the message delivered by All Blacks coach Steve Hansen the previous week when saying he felt Vern Cotter had done a really good job and that his successor would come in and add ‘polish’, suggesting they see their fellow antipodean as having shown Scotland the rugby light.
Those whose job is to engage in critical analysis, rather than espouse blind faith will, then, doubtless be accused of seeking to detract from Saturday’s success, but Gregor Townsend was rightly reminded after the match that Andy Robinson, his old boss,during his days as Scotland’s attack coach, used to warn against over-optimism in autumn leading to disappointment in spring.
It certainly seems unlikely that England in particular, Ireland and even Wales or France will be as prepared to indulge Scotland’s ambitions to play an expansively as those who seem to feel that to do so is to gain endorsement of their philosophy. From that perspective, then, as much as there has been hope to be gained from the wins over Ireland and home and away against the Wallabies, there have been other lessons in 2017, most notably at Twickenham, but also when a Glasgow Warriors side that remains unbeaten in this season’s Pro14, was bullied by Exeter Chiefs and Leinster in the European Cup.
Read more: Six Nations will be tougher but Gregor Townsend and his players cannot wait for the challenge
While Townsend always preaches positivity, then, he seemed to acknowledge some validity in the point being made, replying: “Optimism is a good thing. I’m generally an optimist. I think our players are too and we should be optimistic but we have to realise there’s a lot of things we can do better. Which is a positive. What we did today and last week should be seen as part of the process of improving but we’re not going to get carried away.
“Wales away, there’s a bit of history against us there and how we’ve performed against that side in the past and they’ll ask different questions defensively and in attack than the way Australia and New Zealand have. The frustrating thing is for a coach at the end of a November series is that we don’t have a chance to work with the players again until the last week in January, but now the players must take the onus. They have to show in the next two months that they’re still in form and have become better players playing these last few weeks and those coming back from injury must show what they can do to get back in.”
As Townsend’s mentor Ian McGeechan was so fond of saying, a coach can only be as good as his players and in that regard Townsend has again shown shrewdness in making his move for the Scotland job when he did. There can surely be no greater demonstration of the improvement in available resources than in comparison with Townsend’s time as Scotland’s specialist attack coach when a grand total of 35 tries were registered in 37 matches. This time around he has been six matches have already produced 27 tries, the latest from McGuigan (2), Ali Price, Jonny Gray, Huw Jones, John Barclay and Stuart McInally.
Read more: Gary Armstrong: Scots are in a great place for now but the Six Nations will be different
To his credit he also sought proper perspective when asked whether he would have preferred to have seen how his men could do with 15 against 15 for the whole match.
“We were 12-10 down at the time, which showed their quality,” he said. “We played really well in the first 20 minutes, but it was a big part of the game, certainly how the scoreline ended up, that red card. Who knows what would have happened, it’s the fascinating thing about sport, but our players kept the pace up, which created a little less structure and more open rugby and some of them did really well to exploit that.”
They did, but their coach knows they may be made to work a bit harder to cross the opposition line and even to get into the right positions to do so when there are more prestigious prizes than the Hopetoun Cup up for grabs in the spring.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel