DRAGON SLAYERS
Scotland triumph delights Stern Vern
SCOTLAND travel to Twickenham in a fortnight knowing a win will deliver their first Triple Crown since 1990 after defeating Wales 29-13 at Murrayfield yesterday.
Behind by four at half time, Vern Cotter’s team roared back after the break with 20 unanswered points to make it two home wins in a row following the win over Ireland. The result sent Scotland to the top of the Six Nations Championship, but they later dropped to second after Ireland’s victory over France.
It was their first win over the Welsh since 2007, and the perfect way to bounce back from the disappointment of losing in Paris a fortnight ago – and an ideal start as captain for John Barclay, who has replaced the injured Greig Laidlaw.
“I was really happy for a number of reasons,” Cotter, the head coach, said. “We set out to win the game and at half time we weren’t particularly well positioned to do that.
“The players adjusted well in the second half, we scored a couple of nice tries and transferred pressure back on to the Welsh team. It was a good second-half performance, so I’m very happy.”
The tries came from wingers Tommy Seymour and Tim Visser, while Finn Russell converted both and also scored five penalties. Liam Williams scored Wales’ only try, with the other points coming from the boot of full-back Leigh Halfpenny.
While Scotland were dominant in the second half after playing second fiddle for much of the first, Cotter insisted there had been no reading the riot act at half time. Instead, he explained, the group as a whole talked calmly about how to tighten their grip on the game.
“We had to tweak a couple of things in the way we approached the game. The boys realised that we were probably watching them playing rather than playing ourselves. It’s fair to say that we could influence the outcome if we did a few things – and that wasn’t just me talking, it was everybody.
“I’m very proud of that response. It’s been a while since we could talk about a win over Wales.”
AFIRST win over Wales for 10 years. A second half of 20 unanswered points. And next: a crack at the Triple Crown against England at Twickenham, where Scotland have not won for more than 30 years.
That latter match will be tough, of course, and Vern Cotter’s team will go into it as underdogs. But, after yesterday’s remarkable victory at Murrayfield, they will also go into it with genuine optimism – and perhaps with little to lose.
What made the success against Wales all the more remarkable was the circumstances in which it came about. The euphoria generated by the opening-day defeat of Ireland had been dispelled by the loss in France which had also cost Scotland their captain, Greig Laidlaw, as well as Josh Strauss.
So they were depleted for this one, and the fear was that, without Laidlaw, their organisation might suffer. That fear perhaps remained intact for spells in the opening quarter or so, but it vanished long before the end of the game. Whatever dejection they might have felt immediately after the Paris match, Scotland were restored to full confidence here.
Wales had the better of the first half and would have had more than a four-point lead at the break had it not been for some well-organised defence. But in the second period they were bereft of imagination and steadily became frustrated. Scotland, by contrast, grew in stature as the match went on, ending up by proving their superiority in almost every aspect of the contest. They outscored Wales by two tries to one, with Tommy Seymour and Tim Visser touching down, while Finn Russell converted both those scores and added five penalties.
It was Russell who gave Scotland the lead with a sixth-minute penalty at the end of a promising attack in which Huw Jones was prominent, but Leigh Halfpenny soon replied in kind for Wales. The visitors then took the lead midway through the half from their first scrum – which should arguably have been Scotland’s put-in – creating space all too easily for Liam Williams to touch down by the left corner flag. Halfpenny added the two points to put his side into double figures, and before the restart John Hardie became the first casualty of the day, being replaced by Hamish Watson.
Williams thought he had come close again minutes later, but Wales were penalised after a TV replay showed Rhys Webb had held back Seymour. Russell knocked over his second penalty, and Scotland began to build promisingly, drawing defenders into the ruck to create space out wide. Before they could exploit that space, however, they offended again, allowing Halfpenny to restore Wales’ seven-point lead.
The full-back was off target with another effort two minutes before the break, and Scotland finished the half on top, coming close to claiming their first try thanks to a quickly-taken line-out. Stuart Hogg sowed confusion in the defence and kicked ahead for Seymour, who then released Jones. The centre seemed certain to reach the line, but Justin Tipuric got to him just in time.
There was still time for Scotland to win another penalty, however, and Russell’s successful kick made it 9-13 at the break. It was a narrow margin that flattered the home team, but it appeared to instil new self-belief in them, and it only took them a few minutes after the restart to go ahead.
Seymour seemed to have no room for manoeuvre when he got the ball on the right, but he forced his way over, and Russell’s conversion went in off the post. Wales should have gone back in front minutes later when Jonathan Davies broke free, but he was hauled down just in time.
Russell made it 19-13 with another penalty not long after Ali Price had twisted and turned his way through a tight defence, but Wales hit back. They thought they had regained the lead when the ball squirted out of a Scots scrum and Rhys Webb touched down in the corner, but he had been tackled by Visser just in time, a replay proving he had gone in touch.
Barring the odd futile flurry in the final minutes, that was just about that when it came to the visitors as an attacking force. Cotter had suggested that Wales were a second-half team, and the strength of their bench looked certain to prove him right, but they were undone by the sheer creativity and spirit of their hosts.
With a dozen minutes to play, Visser scored from a Hogg pass to putScotland24-13up, andRussell’s conversion stretched the lead to two full scores. If there was still a degree of edginess among the home crowd, it evaporated when Russell sent over his fifth penalty, this one from the far right. Even if the kick had done nothing more than run down the clock, it would have performed a useful function. Its success took Scotland’ s second-half tally to 20 points, and finally put the outcome beyond doubt.
Wales tried to fight back, but in their desperation they were turned over several times by an increasingly resolute defence.