Stop-go Scots are dogged by injuries
GREGOR Townsend flies out with his players to Nagasaki tomorrow with plenty of concerns over his injury-hit squad following an uninspiring final send off at Murrayfield.
An unconvincing, scrappy victory over minnows Georgia in front of an expectant crowd desperate to see some signs that their heroes can enjoy a successful time in Japan was hardly what the doctor ordered.
The list of further injuries sustained during a game where the scoreboard flattered the hosts merely increased the selection headaches Townsend has been left with just 15 days before the big kick off against Ireland.
The head coach has new concerns over Jamie Ritchie (facial injury), Jonny Gray and Blade Thomson (hamstrings), and Blair Kinghorn and Ben Toolis (concusions), as he tries to devise a watertight plan to conquer the men in green at Yokohama Stadium and get his country’s campaign off to a winning start.
Having lifted spirits with victories over France at Murrayfield and then Georgia in Tbilisi, Scotland failed to follow up when expectation was greatest.
Full-back Chris Harris, who came on as an early replacement for Kinghorn, said: “It was a shame we couldn’t give the supporters a better game to enjoy before we fly out for the World Cup.
“They would have been hoping to see us win more comfortably but Georgia made things hard and we left a lot of points out there, especially in the first half.
“We started so slowly and couldn’t really get into top gear. We simply cannot play like that in the World Cup. We must not let it happen again.”
Indeed, if Scotland play as they did in the first-half, where they scored two tries but still led only 10-9 at the break, the World Cup dream may not last too long.
Lack of discipline was also evident against the world’s twelfth ranked team with Georgia fly-half Tedo Abzhandadze punishing the hosts with three penalties. It did not please Townsend who is well aware his players will need to stay in control in Japan.
Scrum-half Ali Price finished off the opening move in the 17th minute after Kinghorn’s initial break had made gaps in the visitors’ defence.
And Kinghorn was in the right place to complete another swift attack, this time orchestrated by Adam Hastings’ pinpoint crossfield kick which Darcy Graham did superbly well to off-load to Kinghorn.
Abzhandadze’s kicks prevented Scotland from feeling at ease while referee Romain Poite ran out of patience with the two packs as an umpteenth scrum collapsed and showed yellow cards to Scotland tighthead Zander Ferguson and Georgia loosehead Mikheil Nariashvili.
But the Scotland backs found plenty of space in the second half with Blade Thomson and Ryan Wilson pushing forward to send Sam Johnson under the posts unchallenged. Harris served up the fourth, slipping two tacklers and setting up Graham for an easy score.
George Horne brushed off some weak defending for the fifth and brother Peter stepped from the bench to complete the scoring thanks to reckless play by the visitors inside their own half. The likes of Greig Laidlaw and Finn Russell are waiting in the wings to step in at half-back to help Scotland go further than that devastating loss to Australia in the quarter-finals four years ago.
Scotland boss Townsend said: “There is still plenty to work on and improve over the next couple of weeks. The guys have worked so hard to get where they are and will continue to up things in training when we get to Japan.
“We need to be completely ready because it’s such a massive opening contest for both ourselves and Ireland.
“We were not as accurate as we were last week and we needed to go back to basics at half-time to put things right. Errors will happen but we needed to control the speed of the ball and penalty count.
“We scored some cracking tries and when we get things together we look a good team and are a match for anyone.”