FALLING FLAT
Scots crash back to earth following Australia high as flying Fiji dish out a lesson
ON A rainy, overcast afternoon in Fiji when the Scotland performance was as gloomy as the unexpected bad weather, it became obvious that, without Finn Russell, they will always struggle.
That is the only conclusion to be reached after they went from looking like world-beaters against Australia to also-rans against Fiji without him.
It was Russell who orchestrated the victory in Sydney before he was called up by the British and Irish Lions, which made him unavailable for the match in Suva.
Both Peter Horne and Ruaridh Jackson, who redeemed himself a bit by scoring a try, tried and failed to fill his shoes. Apart from the two of them, there is no viable alternative at No10 in or around the Scotland set-up.
Duncan Weir of Edinburgh has gone backwards in his development and was not even picked for the tour. Adam Hastings, son of Gavin, has to prove himself in his first season at Glasgow Warriors.
Knowing that his Scotland team have no strength in depth in a position he excelled in will be a major worry for head coach Gregor Townsend.
His two selections at No10 — Horne played the first half, Jackson moved there from fullback in the second — came nowhere near to controlling the game.
Their kicking was erratic and, like their team-mates, they made too many handling errors and fell off too many tackles.
Townsend said he now knew ‘where we are’ in terms of cover for Russell. Although he did not state where that is exactly, if he did it would have to be, ‘struggling badly to find anybody near his standard’.
The Scotland head coach, choosing his words carefully, said; ‘You have to see other players at No10 as well and this gave us a chance.
‘Finn was outstanding last week against Australia and good the first week against Italy as well. He is with the Lions now and it is great that he is getting that experience.
‘For Peter and Ruaridh, we now know where we are. It was tough on them because the ball was slippy and we did not get enough of our attack going.
‘Part of the reason for that was because we dropped too many balls and also because we chose to use driving line-outs. They were a success for us but it did mean we could not get into the same good attack shape as we had in the first two games.
‘Overall, as a team, we lost too many balls in contact but I am not taking anything away from the Fijians. They looked very good against Australia and were unlucky not to score a few more tries against them. They were very good against us and I can have no complaints at the result.’
What will infuriate Townsend is that his team, without the flair of Russell to spin the ball wide, allowed themselves to be sucked into an arm-wrestle with a Fijian side they were never going to win.
That was perfectly illustrated when Josua Tuisova, the winger known as ‘The Bus’, nearly cut Damien Hoyland in half with easily the most crushing tackle the Edinburgh player would have had the misfortune of being on the end of.
Poor Hoyland received another hit from Fijian flanker Peceli Yato of equal ferocity that he walked away from. Fair play to the Scot, who did not flinch at all in either tackle or any other of the big hits he was subjected to.
The star of the show was former Glasgow Warriors player Leone Nakarawa, who put in a world-class performance and who was loudly cheered at the final whistle by Seb Coe, the former Olympic champion who was on the island on athletics business.
He set up two tries, the first an absolutely terrific one. He started the move with a one-handed pass that led to a cross kick from fly-half Ben Volavola that found winger Patrick Osborne in space out wide. He ran over Jackson, like Jonah Lomu used to do with his opponents, before offloading to Yeto who scored a magnificent try.
The second that secured victory came from a blatant forward pass to scorer Henry Seniloli that was missed by French referee Pascal Gauzere. Nakarawa was not complaining or about to own up.
Because there was no TMO at the game because of technical difficulties with the television replays, the ref could not even refer the incident upstairs as Scotland had wanted.
Fiji’s other points came from the boot of their fly-half Volavola, who outplayed counterpart Horne in the first half and Jackson in the second when he was moved there.
Ross Ford, on his record-breaking 110th appearance, Jackson and Fraser Brown, both of whom scored their first tries for their country, all crossed the whitewash for Scotland.
It was not a dirty game but, because of the physicality of the encounter, three players were yellow-carded. The only Scot sent to the sin-bin was Josh Strauss for a late tackle on the rampaging Nakarawa.
Fiji had lock forward Tevita Cavubati yellow-carded for pulling Jonny Gray down in the line-out, while prop Peni Ravai was given ten minutes on the sidelines for pulling down a maul.
At the break, it was 11-7 to Fiji and they were well worth the lead and pulled even further away in the second half.
Only a late try from Brown gave Scotland a bit of hope but it was too little, too late as Fiji won their first game against the visitors since 1998.
The scenes at the end of the match and in the streets of Suva showed what the win meant to the people of the rugby-mad South Sea Island.
For Townsend, it will be a long, frustrating summer as the loss came in the last match of an otherwise successful tour. SCORERS; Fiji: Tries — Yato, Seniloli; Conversion — Volavola; Penalties — Volavola (5). SCOTLAND: Tries — Ford, Jackson, Brown; Conversions — Jackson (2); Penalty — Jackson.