WHAT A SHAMBLES
Wales call off Scotland clash just hours after giving it the go-ahead:
SO, Wales v Scotland was finally called off but why wait until 2pm the day before? I was lucky. My taxi arrived to take me to the airport just as the news broke, so I wasn’t disrupted too much. But there would have been thousands of Scottish fans in Cardiff or on their way who were not so lucky.
I appreciate these are unprecedented times and public safety and containing this coronavirus is the absolute priority, but the authorities took an age to make a decision that could and should have been made earlier.
There was chat at the ScotlandFrance game last week that, if the France v Ireland match was called off along with the Italy v England clash that had been cancelled a week or so ago, then the Wales v Scotland game would be called off as well and a full Super Saturday of three matches would be played later in the year.
As predicted, France-Ireland was called off but the game in Cardiff was still on. In the absence of any edict from the Government, the Six Nations, WRU and SRU were left to make the decisions themselves and they would have considered all the hotels and travel already booked and how the supporters will be hugely out of pocket.
But as the week progressed and major sporting fixtures were being cancelled all around the world, it just seemed inevitable that the game in Cardiff would not happen. If it had been pulled on Thursday, then the vast majority of Scots could have cancelled travel and their hotels and maybe got some money back.
So the Six Nations finishes for the time being with nothing guaranteed; we don’t know the winners, where every team will finish and all that will be played out in the autumn.
With the caveat of the focus being on containing this virus in the UK, it is a shame that Scotland are not getting to play today because they had built up real momentum over the past two games.
Scotland’s biggest flaw in the last number of years has been a lack of consistency; on their day they can play fantastic rugby as shown against England two years ago and in nearly beating New Zealand in the same year. When they are hot, they are very hot.
But those special days have been few and far between, and have really stopped Scotland getting sustained improvement because of the inconsistency.
This stat proves this very graphically. Scotland have not won three consecutive matches in the Six Nations ever! The last time Scotland did win three Championship games in a row was in 1996 — 24 years ago — in the old Five Nations. So many times there has been a situation that has felt like taking two steps forward with one step backwards.
Clearly, you cannot have a chance of winning the Six Nations if you can’t win three consecutive
matches. It really has been a rollercoaster ride for Scotland in this year’s Guinness Six Nations. It started with the very public bust-up between the star player and coach, and then back-to-back defeats to Ireland and England.
Through hard work and digging deep, the players and coaches have come through that dip and the rollercoaster is flying high at the moment.
Two wins on the bounce has brought real confidence back to the squad and you could see it in their performance last week against France.
The inconsistency of performance was seen in each game as well; play well for 20 minutes, or 40 minutes, but Scotland could never put in a complete 80-minute performance.
They did last week and this, in particular, is what gives me confidence that this team can develop into a side that wins more consistently.
The manner of the France performance gives me this confidence, as well. For too many years, Scotland seemed to have a soft underbelly; when things got tough, the opposition could resort to physicality. We would not be able to cope.
They could also exert pressure at scrum time and, if you went through the phases, Scotland’s defence would eventually break.
Not on the evidence of the last month or so.
Gregor Townsend made two major changes to his coaching team bringing in Steve Tandy to look at defence and Peter de Villiers to improve the scrum. Both have done an incredible job in such a small period of time.
Scotland have only conceded four tries in their four games. In the equivalent last year, Scotland had conceded 15. That is a massive improvement and Tandy deserves much credit for the major improvement in this area. The scrum has become an attacking weapon now for Scotland. I always just wanted parity at scrum time to allow Scotland a foundation to restart the game.
Now it is an attacking weapon, with Scotland gaining scrum penalties which result in three points or much improved field position to start the next attack. Scotland’s overall tactics have also helped and this is where Townsend deserves credit. He acknowledged that the way they were trying to play in the World Cup was not working and they have adopted a much more pragmatic approach.
They have stopped playing wide-wide which was great to watch when it worked but that wasn’t very often. It also put huge pressure on the fitness levels of the players. Most could not cope.
The energy that the team has brought to their defence and their scrum has been a result of having more energy because the game plan is not so frenetic but much more balanced and structured.
It still means Scotland can score tries from distance like they did last week for Sean Maitland’s second try but it has also meant they have brought a ferocity and intensity to their defence when they don’t have the ball.
Scotland would have had a real chance to win in Cardiff for the first time in 18 years but we will never know. Things will be very different in October when the game is rescheduled.
I was involved in 2001 when this happened due to the foot-andmouth issue. We played Ireland at Murrayfield in late September but it didn’t feel like a Six Nations match. It felt more like a friendly.