SCOTS GIVE VERNA PARTING GIFT
Cotter’s record-breakers dismiss Italy as Kiwi’s reign ends on home high
SCOTLAND gave coach Vern Cotter the victorious swansong he deserved and threw in a new record by denying the visitors to Murrayfield a point for the first time in RBS Six Nations history.
If records are the measure of a coach’s success then Cotter is in a league of his own. This comfortable bonus-point win, with tries from Finn Russell, Matt Scott, Tim Visser and Tommy Seymour, ensured the Scots triumphed in every home game for the first time in 11 years. The final tally of 14 tries and 14 points were also new championship standards.
To realise that it was achieved with a handful of players missing — notably skipper Greig Laidlaw, props WP Nel and Alasdair Dickinson, centre Duncan Taylor and imported back rows John Hardie and Josh Strauss — is to understand how Cotter has developed Scotland’s strength.
Those stats were what was important, underlined by the great roars of support for the departing Cotter — drowning out his BBC interview — as the game itself failed to live up to the pre-match hopes for an entertaining finale, with long spells of error-strewn tedium.
‘Thanks everybody, it’s been great fun,’ was all a reluctant and emotional Cotter could offer when interviewed on the pitch, as he welled up before joining his daughter and players on a lap of honour.
His record of 19 wins against 17 defeats, 53-per-cent success, is the best by a Scotland coach in the professional era but, more than that, he has taken Scotland from a team hanging on to the coat-tails of the world’s top nations and pushed them back among them.
Italy’s new coach Conor O’Shea, however, has much work ahead as his team finished this game and the championship without a point.
The teams appeared much closer than the final margin, Scotland failing to play at a tempo to expose the difference in quality and Italy working tirelessly. But where the Scots’ newfound finishing quality claimed 29 points, Italy passed up three first-half penalty chances. Crucially, they failed to exploit the hosts being reduced to 14 men, with skipper John Barclay sin-binned in the second half.
While all but Richie Gray of Scotland’s walking wounded from Twickenham had come through fitness tests, Italy pitched up for the final game without top attackers Michele Campagnaro and Leonardo Sarto and Glasgow flanker Simone Favaro. They were missed hugely as Italy lacked the quality to pierce a pride-fuelled Scots defence.
Instead of the try-fest finale fans were hoping for, Scotland strived to play a different game, reacting to the morning rain by opting to kick ball deep into the Italian half for most of the game and seeking to banish the pain of the 40-point loss to England.
After an error-strewn first quarter, yielding only a long-range penalty from Stuart Hogg, open rugby broke out, intriguingly, after French referee Pascal Gauzere pulled captains Barclay and Sergio Parisse aside midway through the first half and seemed to suggest that even he was becoming bored with awarding penalties. The Frenchman asked that, while the light rain may be contributing to the plethora of mistakes, could both sides try to be more positive?
The lineouts had coughed up frequent turnovers, and though the Italians flexed their forward muscle with an early lineout drive, their goal-kicker Carlo Canna missed three eminently kickable shots at goal and Scotland patiently waited for their chance.
After Gauzere’s chat with the captains, Scotland did finally keep ball in hand. Huw Jones twice made scything breaks and, though the centre succumbed to injury as a result, Russell squeezed between Tommaso Benvenuti and Angelo Esposito to score the opening try.
The fly-half converted to open up a ten-point gap and two minutes before half-time a lineout steal by Jonny Gray led to another concerted period of pressure which Jones’ replacement Matt Scott finished, after superb work by Hogg in winning an aerial battle for Ali Price’s chip.
That took Scotland into half-time with a 15-0 lead but they then handed Italy the incentive with a series of penalties, one costing them skipper Barclay to the sin-bin, as they were forced to spend a lengthy period defending their own line.
However, as impressive as Scotland’s scrambling defence was, Italy’s inability to finish was shocking. Twice they squandered clear overlaps with poor passes, leaving Hogg to get to a final try-saving tackle, punch the air and prompt a great Murrayfield roar.
Henry Pyrgos, on for Price, showed Scotland were not immune with a poor pass at the other end, but when Scotland did emerge from a plodding display they were dangerous and in the 62nd minute scored a third try.
It was another loose affair, a Hogg chip and chase being lost by Italian defenders under pressure from Visser and the winger just beating Russell to touch it down.
With Barclay back on, Scotland lifted the tempo in the final stage and were rewarded with the bonus-point score by Seymour with seven minutes to go to cap a record try and points tally for the championship.
And that was what mattered, the full stop to Scotland’s best Six Nations to date. A first capacity Murrayfield against Italy produced the biggest cheers when the cameras panned to Greig Laidlaw, the injured captain in the West Stand, and Cotter as he joined the players on the pitch.
Alongside the emotion of Cotter’s time coming to an end, Murrayfield reverberated to an excitement of being at the start of a new era in Scottish rugby.