All work, no play

The management had clearly looked at the conditions and had sent out Dunky Weir at 10 to play a kicking game. I think we maybe got it wrong. We could have moved it a bit more. Sean Maitland managed to get a few runs but we didn't really see Tim Visser, Sean Lamont and Stuart Hogg with the ball in their hands until those closing moments.

We gave away too many penalties as well. At any level, 16 is far too many. You have to be looking at keeping it below double figures. Our scrum was clearly struggling too. We seemed to be getting penalised a lot and it wasn't all the referee's fault. Some of the penalties we were giving away in general were stupid, in particular the one Jim Hamilton conceded at the end of the first half. He is getting better and he is getting fitter, but you just can't afford rushes of blood like that.

I thought our kicking game was good at times but we were kicking off the front foot, whereas Wales tried to play first and then resorted to kicking when that didn't work.

Overall, though, it was a decent first performance from Dunc, he has just got to get the balance a bit better between kicking and running the ball. He certainly deserved his start, though, and has definitely earned another shot. He just needs at times not to sit quite so deep, but he showed he has vision with that little chip and chase that put Wales under pressure in the first half.

In fairness, I don't know what he is being instructed to do, but in general we have to have more ball and make better decisions when we have it.

From talking to Scott Johnson last week, I know it is a pretty basic gameplan they are pursuing, but our main threats are our 14 (Maitland), 11 (Visser) and 15 (Hogg), so we have to find more ways of getting the ball in their hands. Saying that, you can't just ship it along either so you have to make sure you create the right opportunities.

In terms of scoring, we are still far too reliant on Greig Laidlaw kicking at goal, too, so there's little things in there that they need to sort out. There's no need to panic because a good spirit has been built up over the last few weeks and we are doing certain things well, but we do need to improve our attacking play and our discipline.

In terms of what we can change, I would like to see Alex Dunbar coming in at outside centre and it was great to see Ryan Wilson get a cap after the way he's been playing. Ideally he probably needs to put on an extra stone, but he is one of a number of good youngsters coming through and hopefully one or two more will get chances this summer.

Wilson gives us another option in the back row, which is maybe an area we have to look at because I thought Sam Warburton was getting to the ball first. Kelly Brown has led superbly and his tackle count has been outstanding, but John Barclay is beginning to find form at Glasgow and Ross Rennie is back in training at Edinburgh, so I would like to see Barclay back with Kelly at six.

England are a little bit like that too, going in without a specialist openside, so today is big for them as they try to make virtually certain of the title by building up the advantage in points differential in the knowledge that Wales can cause them real problems next week.

Wales may only have an outside chance of defending their title now but they are the ones who are entitled to a shot at doing so after yesterday's match because they got it spot on in the early stages in particular. They had a plan to suck us in and then release their backs. They deserved their win as the better side all round.

In finishing, I want to say how much I feel for Richie Gray, going off the way he did with what looked a pretty serious hamstring problem. I remember back at Twickenham in 1993 when I broke my arm in the final match of the championship the first thing that went through my mind was that I would miss the Lions tour that summer. I just hope for his sake that it's not that serious.