FROM the start against Italy, Scotland got their approach right. I was pleased by the high tempo with which they began the match, and by the confidence they showed in being willing to spread the ball round from their earliest attacks.
Their reward for that was two fantastic tries, the scores by John Barclay and John Hardie that put them in the driving seat.
They deserved to be ahead, and by a convincing margin, thanks to the enterprise they showed in those opening exchanges. But, at the same time, they showed they were aware of the dangers of being overconfident against the Italians, who have, after all, successfully recovered before from being behind against Scotland.
That balance of confidence and caution was just right. The team looked far more comfortable with themselves than they have done in some recent matches, and they created and took chances in some style.
A lot of that was thanks to Greig Laidlaw, who has had his critics at times for the pace at which he plays, but on this occasion got just about everything right. As the scrum-half, he was responsible for dictating the tempo of our attacks. As the captain, he managed to communicate his composure to the team. And as the goalkicker, he played a vital role, with his three conversions and above all the five penalties, in maintaining a bit of breathing space for us when Italy fought back from that early 17-3 deficit.
You know you’re going to be under the pump at some stage of the match against the Italians, and Rome was no exception. Crucially, though, Scotland’s scrum was really strong, winning some really vital penalties.
One or two of those penalties were turned into points by the boot of Laidlaw, but that is not the only value that those awards have for a team. When your backs are to the wall in defence, for example, they are a real morale boost and lift the pressure. It’s the tight forwards that win them, but everyone in the team gets a lift from them.
There were some lapses in defence, which Italy exploited when they came back, beginning with the home team’s try that took the half-time score to just 17-10 for Scotland. In general, though, the team kept their heads and defended extremely well.
Finn Russell’s yellow card, which looked harsh to me, was costly as it didn’t take long for the Italians to score after we had been reduced to 14 men. But it could have been a lot worse, but for the quality and character of the defence, particularly towards the end of the game when Russell was back in the game but WP Nel had followed him into the sin bin with a silly yellow card.
Italy showed a lot of character as well when they were battering our line for a while in the closing quarter of an hour, but when they kept being held up they ran out of ideas. Sergio Parisse’s class is obvious, and as a captain he can inspire his whole team, but he made some poor decisions during those final stages of the game and perhaps tried to take on too much himself.
The icing on the cake at the end was Tommy Seymour’s try, created by a beautiful offload from Stuart Hogg. After Scotland had taken control of the game earlier on with some running rugby that produced the first two tries, it was fitting that they should wrap up the game in the same way.
It was not the complete performance, as Vern Cotter and the players all accepted afterwards, but the team dug deep and can take a lot of confidence into their next game as a result. They can look forward to playing against France, who are not a great side, and they will be especially keen to follow up that win abroad with a victory at Murrayfield.
France seem to be at sixes and sevens just now. They beat Ireland, who had a lot of players out injured, having previously, and very fortunately, beaten Italy. I was at their game against Wales on Friday night, and they deservedly lost what was a pretty terrible match.
We know that the same group of French players are capable of being the worst or the best team in the world. It just isn’t clear just now what they’re trying to do under Guy Noves.
It won’t be easy at Murrayfield a week on Sunday, but Scotland have enough quality to win. The players can’t and won’t get carried away. They will recreate a lot of the stuff that worked so well against the Italians, and over this week and next they will work on tightening up the defence a little bit as well. If they can do that, and if they start against France with the tempo with which they began the game in the Olympic Stadium, they will have a good chance of making it two wins in a row.
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