Why did we go long on the line-out?
I wondered what on earth Scotland were playing at
THE fevered debate over Craig Joubert’s hugely controversial decision to award Australia a l ate penalty is at an end. He got it wrong.
Through all the rancour and outrage, however, one of Scotland’s greatest-ever players is asking how Vern Cotter’s side managed to put themselves in such a difficult situation in the first place?
With a line- out 35 metres from their own line, and with full-time fast approaching, 1984 Grand Slam hooker Colin Deans was horrified at the decision-making by the Scotland players involved in the chain of events which l ed to Bernard Foley’s winning kick.
‘Rather than lob the ball to the front or, even better, to the middle of the line- out into the hands of the biggest man on the park in Richie Gray, who could have taken the ball down and held on to it, they decide to go long to the back to David Denton — that was always going to be a huge risk in the lashing rain,’ said the 52-times capped Scotland hooker.
‘I sat t here open- mouthed wondering what they were playing at. Anybody of any experience out there — even in the heat of the battle — would have gone safety first. If there ever was a safety-first moment, this was it.
‘A couple of minutes left in a World Cup quarter-final and you are ahead. It’s raining, you have the line-out. All you have to do is hit your biggest man, he takes it in, the pack get around him and you run the clock down.
‘Instead they go to the back of the line-out with the throw. Why? There is less margin for error there. Denton didn’t take it cleanly. He knocked it back to John Hardie, then it came off an Australian then Jon Welsh was penalised for being offside. Australia got the penalty and go on to win the match.
‘All of that could have been avoided if they had taken a moment to think things through. Time was on Scotland’s side as they were ahead. But everything unravelled.
‘Was it Richie Gray who was calling the line-out and talking to the hooker Fraser Brown? I don’t know. Either way, the controversy over Joubert awarding t hat penalty could have been avoided if Scotland had got their line- out right in the first place.’
For all Deans — who started every game of the 1984 Grand Slam — insists the Scots did not help themselves in the dying moments, he acknowledges Joubert did them few favours either.
‘The ref was no real help, was he?’ said Deans. ‘The incident that led to Foley’s winning penalty should have been referred to the TMO.
‘I know World Rugby said it was against the rules for him to do so, but come on! The TMO has been used lots during this World Cup, so why not during this incident? It was one of the biggest calls in the history of Scottish rugby.
‘I felt Joubert also got it wrong yellow-carding Sean Maitland for a supposed deliberate knock- on. Fortune should favour the brave and I thought he was going for the interception and just failed to grab the ball.
‘Yes, it was a penalty, but to yellow- card him for that was a disgrace. Australia scored while he was off the pitch. So, when it came to officialdom, Scotland had a rough time.’
The Scotland squad left their base at Surrey Sports Park near Guildford yesterday after a recovery session at the complex.
There was little time to linger. Under World Cup organising rules they needed to be out of their hotel by the evening to allow South Africa to move in and prepare for their World Cup semi-final against New Zealand on Saturday.
The dressing room tears of the night before had long since dried by yesterday morning but the sense of anger endured.
An emotional Denton summed things up immediately after the match when he said the defeat had affected the whole nation and would live with the players for the rest of their lives.
And that extreme of emotions was shared by all those within the Scotland camp.
Blair Cowan, Ross Ford and Stuart Hogg played their part in Scotland’s heroic defeat to the Aussies, but they and their families had made sacrifices to get that far and had their own reasons for wanting to make the semi-finals.
Ford dashed up to a hospital in the Borders to be at the birth of his son Owen before rushing back to join the Scotland squad the next day ahead of the match. What better way to celebrate than by helping Scotland to the last four of the World Cup?
Hogg wanted to make the semifinals in honour of his childhood friend Richard Wilkinson, who died beside him in a car crash and whose name he remembers every time he scores a try.
Cowan wanted to make his family — who had flown in from New Zealand — proud of him. The man whose mum Joan was born near Dunoon before emigrating with her parents, said: ‘My family were 30 hours on a flight that took three days to watch the game. Now they are travelling back, but I would have loved to have given them a reason to stay.’
Hogg didn’t want to be drawn on Joubert’s decision. What was at the centre of his concern was a late tackle on him by Drew Mitchell.
‘I nearly ended up in the front row of the stand,’ said Hogg. ‘But what is done is done. We can’t go back and we must learn from this.’