stevedog1980 wrote:
Overriding feeling is that attitude cost us that game, team selection seemed fine. As Septic pointed out, Nel was there to counter Wyn Jones but I don't really feel like it would have mattered much who had started and who finished that game.
It would have allowed Fagerson to give more idiotic penalties away. So our penalty count is thankful.
maybe.
Nel is penalised first scrum. All game we had Wyn Jones on his knees, basically every scrum. I've no idea how he gets away with it, but with a numpty like Berry reffing it was hardly a surprise and it wouldn't matter who was against Jones, Nel, Fagerson, Antonio, Furlong, you'd get the same outcome. He'll step off to buy an early pen, he';; scrum squint then flop down as soon as pressure comes on, and if Berry thinks his side can play the ball, that's fine, same if he thinks we can. The scrum is to restart the game - via a contest. The scrum is not a contest when Jones is involved or Berry reffing.
Nel started because of his reputation, and despite that first scrum, it sort of worked. But we won bugger all pens against Jones for all his repeated collapsing, and that wouldn't have been any different whoever we had at TH. Jones can be solid sometimes, but he is never a dominant scrummager. He reminds me of the perma face planting John Hayes.
Mikey Brown wrote:I wish I had the energy to try and analyse this loss but I don’t. My only positive is I guess it’s good to now feel gutted at a narrow 3 point loss to Wales away from home. Previously it feels like we’ve played above ourselves to get that result, rather than beneath, is that progress? I guess the Wales sides have generally been far better though.
Yeah, there is that. Made the mistake of looking at Twitter and various numnuts saying Townsend/Hogg need to go as there has been no progress. Easy to forget how far we have come.
I also think our success in solving the thing that everyone was blaming a couple of years ago (all out attack leading to wild inconsistency), has contributed to some of the issues we have in attack now. The people saying: "I just want us to be competitive in every game and not got blown away" don't seem so happy with it after all.
I have stopped reading posts on Facebook or Twitter after a loss because its so predictable that the bit I've bolded will happen, its ludicrous that they think that way!
Everyone knows that GT will get until after the world cup and tbh I'd be inclined to say it should be longer than that too no matter what happens in the world cup.
Next opponents for your team are France at Murrayfield on Feb 26, and the good news from your point of view is the absence of the new livewire wing, Gabin Villière, who I've just heard has a fractured sinus. A possible replacement is Matthis Lebel of Toulouse.
After the debacle in Cardiff, you must be relieved to be back on your own patch for this match, and as I wrote earlier, I wouldn't put it past you to raise your game and beat the French, but I somehow doubt it and sincerely hope not!
France played some great rugby against Ireland but were far from perfect. Rest assured that Fabien Galthié, Sean Edwards and Raphaël Ibanez will prepare the team well. Sadly, the ref is due to be the RFU's Karl Dickson, who's reputation with Premiership clubs is far from good and gawd knows how he's managed to be accorded the whistle at Test level!
Funny what you say about France being far from perfect. I watched that game while frustrated about Scotland's error count, but then saw Ireland and France make heaps of errors in the first twenty minutes. The difference was, I suppose, that they were playing with much more ambition so the errors were more excusable.
francoisfou wrote:Next opponents for your team are France at Murrayfield on Feb 26, and the good news from your point of view is the absence of the new livewire wing, Gabin Villière, who I've just heard has a fractured sinus. A possible replacement is Matthis Lebel of Toulouse.
After the debacle in Cardiff, you must be relieved to be back on your own patch for this match, and as I wrote earlier, I wouldn't put it past you to raise your game and beat the French, but I somehow doubt it and sincerely hope not!
France played some great rugby against Ireland but were far from perfect. Rest assured that Fabien Galthié, Sean Edwards and Raphaël Ibanez will prepare the team well. Sadly, the ref is due to be the RFU's Karl Dickson, who's reputation with Premiership clubs is far from good and gawd knows how he's managed to be accorded the whistle at Test level!
Not Dickson's biggest fan, probably the worst of the english refs these days but in all honesty he is a huge improvement on O'Keefe and Berry who "reffed" (hahaha) our 2 games so far
Shame about Villiere, he's been great this last year, almost Kolbe like in his ability to beat a man or 3
Funny what you say about France being far from perfect. I watched that game while frustrated about Scotland's error count, but then saw Ireland and France make heaps of errors in the first twenty minutes. The difference was, I suppose, that they were playing with much more ambition so the errors were more excusable.
The first five minutes were mightily impressive with France totally dominant with Dupont's superb try. Then the inexcusable happened at a restart when the French defence were absent and the Irish winger plucked the ball out of the air and waltzed in unopposed. Defence coach Sean Edwards must have gone crazy and given the players a hell of a bollocking at half-time. The French also leaked two other tries which is cause for concern. They have, however, a couple of weeks to get ready for the cauldron that is Murrayfield and they should be up for it and another win towards a Slam.
Good article by Barclay - a key point for me is the one he makes about us seeming to switch in that second half to just trying to win by three points. We shut up shop and just tried to get into good field position to sneak a win, rather than backing ourselves to be the better team.
Scotland’s performance in Cardiff was sloppy, clunky and lethargic. When your error count is so high, you concede so many penalties, your attack just doesn’t click and your maul struggles, you’re playing with one arm tied behind your back, which makes the likelihood of victory slim to non-existent. What makes this loss all the harder to stomach is that this was a Wales outfit who were there for the taking.
Tactical muddle
Wales played a really simple, direct brand of rugby, relying on an emotional reaction from their drubbing in Dublin to lay the physical foundations which might carry them through. Their front five fronted up and their contact-zone work was a level up from the previous week. They held on to the ball, and milked penalties from Scotland.
Russell’s rush of blood to the head with the game in the balance tipped it the way of Wales
Russell’s rush of blood to the head with the game in the balance tipped it the way of Wales
CRAIG WILLIAMSON/SNS GROUP
I tip my hat to them and the way they ground out the result. But Scotland will look back and think, ‘How on earth did we not beat that team?’ Everyone was applauding Gregor Townsend last week for the execution of the game plan against England: the quick lineout that led to the first try, Finn Russell’s tactical nous for the cross-kicks which created the second. Here, by contrast, Wales set a trap into which Scotland fell — the visitors were sucked into a kicking game they didn’t really want to play.
In the first ten minutes, there was space everywhere in the Welsh defence, and I genuinely thought that if Scotland could get the ball moving as we know they can, they could end up winning by 20 points. But it looked as if they thought they had all the time in the world until the last five minutes when the time pressure of the clock became all too apparent.
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They came down confident and with a bit of a swagger but no real sense of urgency in how they were playing. I’ve no idea what was said at half-time or how poor the conditions were at pitch level but, in that disastrous second half, it looked like Scotland were striving to just be ahead by three points.
When Russell attempted that ludicrous drop-goal, I asked myself, ‘What are we actually trying to do here?’ I still don’t have the answer to that question. Scotland needed someone to take a grip of things, to take the game by the scruff of the neck, yet nobody did.
Selection strife
Townsend made five changes to the starting line-up from the Calcutta Cup win, and the only one which could be said to have worked to any significant degree was playing Sione Tuipulotu at inside centre. The Glasgow man showed some nice touches and did some good things in flashes but, even then, because Scotland didn’t hold on to the ball for any length of time other than in the first ten and last ten minutes, it was hard to judge him properly.
The all-new starting front row did not get much change in the scrum, and Zander Fagerson struggled there when he came off the bench. George Turner, the replacement hooker, also gave away a couple of penalties in another sign of just how inaccurate and haphazard Scotland’s play had become.
Pierre Schoeman showed up tremendously well and his stature in this team grows every time he pulls on the jersey. Stuart McInally was also excellent for the 45 minutes he was on the pitch.
Broken breakdown
Scotland were always going to miss Jamie Ritchie, and the brilliant tag team he forms on the floor with Hamish Watson. Exeter’s Sam Skinner is a very different kind of blindside and, with him in the team, I was surprised by the tactic of not competing on so many of Wales’ lineout throws. If you’re effectively playing three second rows, I would have expected them to really challenge a Wales lineout that had been sitting at only a 76 per cent win ratio over the previous five games.
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Townsend was not impressed by some of the referee Nic Berry’s interpretations at the breakdown and, while I thought the Australian was a little whistle-happy at times — pinging Grant Gilchrist for getting in the way of the ball when it was clearly available, for example — the bottom line is that Scotland did not adjust to how this phase of the game was being officiated. That is squarely on them.
Van der Merwe has one of his least effective games for Scotland, and made too costly errors in the final minutes
Van der Merwe has one of his least effective games for Scotland, and made too costly errors in the final minutes
CRAIG WILLIAMSON/SNS GROUP
Scotland lacked any sort of physicality and urgency around the breakdown. When they got into their shape, they looked good, but their attack was characterised by a number of unforced errors: in the last five minutes alone, they were turned over three times at a time when keeping the ball and exerting pressure on Wales — not to mention the referee — was key.
Duhan van der Merwe was stripped, he then dropped the ball and then, from a simple carry off the scrum half, Dylan Lewis won a turnover on the floor. All were big, momentum-shifting moments and Scotland were found wanting.
Russell’s rush of blood
I am still struggling to make sense of Finn’s decision to attempt an intercept which brought about his yellow card. I have applauded — and will continue to do so — his instinct and the aggressive approach he takes to decision making; to trying to make things happen. But when you’re five metres from your tryline, bolting out in search of an intercept is rash.
We’ve seen it work well in similar situations — cast your mind back to the draw at Twickenham in 2019 — so you could argue that we can’t have our cake and eat it, but this was rash, spur-of-the-moment stuff rather than a calculated gamble.
Everything about it was rushed: Russell was not set in the line, he’s not seen the play unfold, he’s just gone for it and consequences be damned.
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The two cards he received in last year’s Six Nations (red in Paris and yellow at Twickenham) were both what I would call “reactive”; instinctive responses to things that happened in the game. I don’t think we need to worry about a pattern of behaviour, but this one undoubtedly really hurt the team’s chances of a comeback.
French fancy
When France came to Murrayfield in 2020, their grand slam bid was derailed and a big part of Scotland’s game plan on February 26 needs to be drawn on the same lines, namely asking how they knock France off their stride; how they make the French become French and show that stereotypically flaky side to their make-up.
It is a monumental task, given the ability, power and confidence in Fabien Galthié’s ranks. If Scotland play as they did in Wales, the result will be extremely one-sided. Even if they only manage to replicate what they did in defence against England, they will lose, because the French have a more potent attack.
There is a hell of a lot of work for Townsend and his assistants to do in the next two weeks, which they are more than capable of doing. Even a week is a long time in sport. Just ask Wales.
I’ve tried not to talk about it but I still feel that intercept or not, Russell was only prevented from catching the ball by a player (Lewis I think) without the ball. He’s catching that 100% of the time if Lewis is isn’t knocking his arm away. Yes the Welsh player was trying to catch a pass that was intended for him, but I thought that yellow was ridiculous.
Doesn’t really change anything about the way we approached the game, but still annoying.
Mikey Brown wrote:Yeah Barclay is generally bang on.
I’ve tried not to talk about it but I still feel that intercept or not, Russell was only prevented from catching the ball by a player (Lewis I think) without the ball. He’s catching that 100% of the time if Lewis is isn’t knocking his arm away. Yes the Welsh player was trying to catch a pass that was intended for him, but I thought that yellow was ridiculous.
Doesn’t really change anything about the way we approached the game, but still annoying.
I had gone along with those who reckoned - stupid decision on your own 5m line. The outcomes are the players responsibility if they take the risk etc
But there is something in what you say in that there is mitigation for a player challenging for a high ball if he gets "bumped" into the collision by the wall of defenders screening for the catcher.
Why no similar mitigation for an intercept if the catching hand is affected?
Maybe like penalty tries they should remove the impediment and consider what "probably" would have happened.
I can't get too worked up about that yellow. We all know that players can and do catch the ball one handed sometimes, but the interpretation is fairly consistent. If you go for an interception one handed and fail, it'll likely be seen as a deliberate knock-on.
There are some exceptions if it is a loopy pass and you come really close to regathering, but I can see the logic in refs not getting too caught up in analysing each player's catching ability.
Cameo wrote:I can't get too worked up about that yellow. We all know that players can and do catch the ball one handed sometimes, but the interpretation is fairly consistent. If you go for an interception one handed and fail, it'll likely be seen as a deliberate knock-on.
There are some exceptions if it is a loopy pass and you come really close to regathering, but I can see the logic in refs not getting too caught up in analysing each player's catching ability.
totally agree with all of that. Just to add, would he have been carded if he's dropped this one after all the juggling?
af73 wrote:
But there is something in what you say in that there is mitigation for a player challenging for a high ball if he gets "bumped" into the collision by the wall of defenders screening for the catcher.
Why no similar mitigation for an intercept if the catching hand is affected?
Maybe like penalty tries they should remove the impediment and consider what "probably" would have happened.
some will remember that Russell got a yellow (later upgraded to red and 2 wk suspension) a couple of seasons back because Bigger landed on him. Far too many cases now where the chaser has no real chance of catching the ball, its just a jump to disrupt the defending catcher. Rugby either needs to hammer these chasers for foul play, or ban catching the ball with feet of the ground; else someone is going to break a neck or worse.
On intercepts, there is no need for change or worry about probably (unless its probable a try would have been scored, unlikely on this week's). If a hand/arm is held back before the ball is caught, its a penalty. If the officials see it
The interpretation is consistent to a degree, but my point was where a player without the ball is disrupting the person trying to catch it (intercept or not) that is surely different. That’s the whole thinking for giving a penalty try if there’s a slap down - if somebody had held Russell back in the clip above and he’d dropped it, resulting in a card, people would rightly be going mental.
Again I don’t mean to put the result on that one moment, but there are definitely limits to the logic and consistency of how intentional knock-ons are reffed.
Our 3 centres across 160min of rugby passed the ball less times (6) than three of the outside centres that played in the other games (7 to 11). Pathetic really.
Big D wrote:Our 3 centres across 160min of rugby passed the ball less times (6) than three of the outside centres that played in the other games (7 to 11). Pathetic really.
not a surprise really. We have been using the 12 primarily to take the ball up. Both Johnson and Tuipolotu can draw and pass but neither are second playmakers. So if a centre is required who can play a bit and manufacture stuff................it isn't Harris
Big D wrote:Our 3 centres across 160min of rugby passed the ball less times (6) than three of the outside centres that played in the other games (7 to 11). Pathetic really.
not a surprise really. We have been using the 12 primarily to take the ball up. Both Johnson and Tuipolotu can draw and pass but neither are second playmakers. So if a centre is required who can play a bit and manufacture stuff................it isn't Harris
..and if we play a creative 12 who draws defenders, makes a half break and off load for the outside centre to capitalise on, make yards, not kill the space for the back 3 or take contact etc....Harris isn't the player you want on the end of that either.
Big D wrote:Our 3 centres across 160min of rugby passed the ball less times (6) than three of the outside centres that played in the other games (7 to 11). Pathetic really.
not a surprise really. We have been using the 12 primarily to take the ball up. Both Johnson and Tuipolotu can draw and pass but neither are second playmakers. So if a centre is required who can play a bit and manufacture stuff................it isn't Harris
..and if we play a creative 12 who draws defenders, makes a half break and off load for the outside centre to capitalise on, make yards, not kill the space for the back 3 or take contact etc....Harris isn't the player you want on the end of that either.
I understand what you’re both getting at, and I never thought I’d become ‘the guy who defends Chris Harris all the time’ but I still don’t see much evidence of a proven alternative yet.
Agreed we need to try something though. 12. Redpath 13. Tuipulotu/Bennett for Italy would be nice to see. But until we see anyone else in action there we’d be trading option a) solid but uninspiring attack & world-class, match-winning defence for b) ??? in attack and ??? in defence.
I want there to be a better option at 13, but I still think it’s worth considering Redpath’s comments about how much easier Harris made things for him in defence, and likewise Russell in attack. The gain to be had from getting everything we can out of Redpath at 12 seems much clearer to me than in swapping an attacker for a defender at 13.
Mikey Brown wrote:I understand what you’re both getting at, and I never thought I’d become ‘the guy who defends Chris Harris all the time’ but I still don’t see much evidence of a proven alternative yet.
Agreed we need to try something though. 12. Redpath 13. Tuipulotu/Bennett for Italy would be nice to see. But until we see anyone else in action there we’d be trading option a) solid but uninspiring attack & world-class, match-winning defence for b) ??? in attack and ??? in defence.
I want there to be a better option at 13, but I still think it’s worth considering Redpath’s comments about how much easier Harris made things for him in defence, and likewise Russell in attack. The gain to be had from getting everything we can out of Redpath at 12 seems much clearer to me than in swapping an attacker for a defender at 13.
The trouble with testing something against Italy is that you don't know if it worked because it's a good combination or because Italy are just bad. However by that point we'll have lost to France so may as well experiment for both the last two games.
switchskier wrote:The trouble with testing something against Italy is that you don't know if it worked because it's a good combination or because Italy are just bad. However by that point we'll have lost to France so may as well experiment for both the last two games.
I always have a problem with this argument.
A professional coach can tell, or at least, much, much better than any of the rest of us.
You can tell a hell of a lot from a opposed training session, and however bad Italy play, they really are more than an opposed training session.
I think I would reluctantly keep Harris for now - as MB says, no one has obviously put themselves forward as a better option just now. I would experiment in the summer a bit though (or just pray for Huw Jones).
In the meantime, I'd pick Redpath and see if adding some more ball playing outside of Russell and Hogg helps us bring our runners into it more.
Wales was shit but let's not get too gloomy either. Most of us were realistic that a loss was entirely possible. We want to be a team that is confident of going to Cardiff and winning but we aren't there yet. I thought it was 60-40 in our favour.
Cameo wrote:I think I would reluctantly keep Harris for now - as MB says, no one has obviously put themselves forward as a better option just now. I would experiment in the summer a bit though
The Harris experiment has been well tested now. We know what he does and know what he doesn't. And in attack he does SFA. The peak has to be next years RWC. Its entirely possible that the next combination doesn't work immediately or at all. So on to the next. We are rapidly running out of tests to try other options. So we will probably stick with a not very fast player, lacking speed or acceleration to make a break, with no step or swerve, no hand off, generally poor hands and a shovel pass. A big lump who doesn't even do crash ball well. But can tackle
