For irish
WE MUST IMPROVE AGAINST ENGLAND
and Finn Russell picked off a pass from replacement Joey Carbery to set up Sam Johnson for his first international try.
The Scots’ possession pipeline clogged up after the break and Ireland compounded problems when Carbery spotted a half-gap and drove through to put Keith
Earls away for a try.
Greig Laidlaw cut the gap to within six points with a penalty but Carbery replied six minutes later. The Scotland captain took issue with the refereeing of Romain Poite. “He doesn’t seem to like us, Romain,” said Laidlaw. But coach Gregor Townsend said: “You could understand his frustration, but it’s a tough game to referee. It was our performance in the second half which cost us the game.”
Cowan-Dickie, Moon, Cole, Launchbury, Hughes, Robson, Ford, Nowell
Bourgarit, Priso, Aldegheri, Willemse, Alldritt, Dupont, Ntamack, Ramos WARREN GATLAND admits his men will be “embarrassed” by England if they repeat this spluttering performance in Cardiff. The visitors scored just two tries from Josh Adams and Owen Watkin to beat Italy. And a clearly unhappy Wales boss admitted: “If we play like that it could be embarrassing. But we’ll not play like that will we!
“We didn’t play with any tempo or real cohesion. We never really got up a head of steam and allowed Italy to stay in the game.”
Italy scored with Braam Steyn and Ed Padovani.