Front, back, then middle, Fiji were gradually picked apart, the sequence of scorers as another eight tries were rattled in at BT Murrayfield, reflecting the way Scotland efficiently went about their work on Saturday.
On a day which saw all of the other nations who would claim to have a chance of success at next year’s World Cup testing themselves against one another, Scotland faced the best of the rest and demonstrated the gulf that should exist when the countries that have teams involved in elite professional competition face up to the rest.
Barring the lapses of concentration that permitted Fiji their tries, which saw them take the lead for the second time in the match during the first half, this was a text book example of the value of time together in terms of honing technique and tactics.
To a large extent that made for an opening half which, those two Fijian scores apart, was short on excitement, Scotland largely keeping things very tight until their opponents’ frustrated indiscipline resulted in two of their number finding their way to the sin bin late in the half.
After Ben Volavola had beaten Finn Russell to becoming the first of the Racing 92 play-makers on the pitch to open the scoring, the home pack took charge, their front-row providing the finishing as Alan Dell and Fraser Brown burrowed in for the game’s first tries. That should have been the platform for a handsome half-time lead and while they then invited the tourists back into the match with a lineout blunder that allowed Peceli Yato to send Bill Mata for his now trademark Murrayfield try, then let Volavola register their second to reclaim the lead, the overall impression was that they had control and knew what was required to set up an easy win.
Willem Nel’s failure to emulate his front-row colleagues in holding onto the ball while crossing the line and the replay official’s decision that Jamie Ritchie had illegally opened up a route to the line for what would have been Brown’s second, further delayed the inevitable. However, when sustained pressure led to those yellow cards for Dominiko Cavubati and ex-Glasgow lock Leone Nakarawa, Scotland were able to exploit their numerical advantage to get Tommy Seymour’s hat-trick hunt underway.
With fellow winger Sean Maitland claiming his fifth try in his last six starts just after the break, Seymour took the opportunity to make up for some lost time, close to 20 months after his previous international touchdown, when capitalising on dishevelled defending to finish off two more moves, before the men in the middle finished things off, Ritchie ploughing in from close range, before replacement fly half Adam Hastings started and finished a long range attack.
The most satisfactory element of an essentially routine dissection of opponents who should never have a chance of beating any of the 10 teams who annually compete in the Northern Hemisphere’s Six Nations and the Southern Hemisphere’s Rugby Championship, while their leading professional teams contest the European Championship and Super Rugby competitions, was the composure shown even when Scotland were embarrassed by letting their early dominance slip. The most obvious difference to last year Fiji, when an unacceptable loss was suffered, was that their quintet of British & Lions backs – Greig Laidlaw, Russell, Maitland, Seymour and Stuart Hogg - were all afield and head coach Gregor Townsend, acknowledged that their knowhow had made a telling difference, in observing that:“Our backline had maybe 100 to 150 more caps than last week, we bring Greig, Finn, Sean and Stuart in, players who’ve played the last five years for Scotland. The discussions they’ve had on the field are on the money: ‘this is what we need to do to win this game!’”
With such an advantage in terms of preparation time there could, of course, be no possible excuse for a repetition of last year’s defeat to Fiji and while there were wholesale changes to the team, just as there had been on that occasion, the vast majority of those brought in this time were hugely experienced players.
The clear exception was man-of-the-match winner Sam Skinner and, like flanker Ritchie who was making his first Test appearance at home, he benefitted from having so many old hands around as the pack dominated possession.
Along with the Lions, for all that he readily admitted to having ‘butchered’ an early opportunity to put Seymour in before the winger claimed his first, Pete Horne’s intelligent running lines and capacity to read what former Glasgow Warriors midfield partner Russell is likely to do, also played a major part in exposing Fiji’s deficiencies.
However, with several other highly experienced players rested, a week a sub-strength team been deprived of unavailable exiles had been fielded, Townsend accepted that as he assesses increasing options there is no room for further experimentation or squad management with the Springboks now in Scotland.
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