Scots blow as Nel is set to miss out against big guns
Townsend finds faults in victory but believes Scots will be ready for All Blacks
SCOTLAND prop WP Nel is likely to be ruled out of the remaining autumn Test matches after being forced off against Samoa at Murrayfield yesterday with a suspected broken arm. Nel (left) is a crucial fixture in the Scotland squad and head coach Gregor Townsend already has concerns around prop strength in depth due to injuries, but it is expected to be confirmed today that the player’s injury is serious enough to take him out of forthcoming matches with New Zealand and Australia. It took some gloss off a frenetic victory and record win over Samoa in Scotland’s first Test match of the season, with tries from Stuart Hogg, Stuart McInally (2), Huw Jones, Alex Dunbar and Peter Horne. However, Townsend was quick to state afterwards that a leaky defence that shipped five tries will need patching up before the All Blacks arrive in town.
SCOTLAND 44 SAMOA 38
HEAD coach Gregor Townsend believes Scotland need improvements in attack and defence after a hard-fought win over Samoa in his first Murrayfield match, but he is also confident that they will be ready when the mighty All Blacks pitch up in the capital next week.
Three tries in the first half and three in the second, courtesy of two from Stuart McInally and others by Stuart Hogg, Huw Jones, Alex Dunbar and Peter Horne, should have had Scotland cruising. But they could not drop a powerful Samoan team shaking off the worries of a bankrupt union, who hit back with five tries of their own for a frenetic finale.
Having taken over from Vern Cotter in the summer, Townsend has now steered his team to wins over Italy, Australia and Samoa, and defeat to Fiji, and the sight of his side scoring six fine tries at BT Murrayfield was an indication of the style of rugby he wants to develop. But the loss of five is another matter.
Asked how he would sum up such a unique game, Townsend said: ‘The fact
that we won is probably a good one to start with. The crowd numbers were tremendous and the way the team worked to get that win I was really pleased with.
‘We were challenged a number of times at the beginning of the game and in the second half but we stayed in front of the opposition. But we are aware that there are a lot of things we have to work on.’
Defence is the obvious area and he insisted that once the mistakes there are analysed — some came later with debutants caught out in defensive mis-reads — they should be sorted for the All Blacks, but he also said that despite scoring six tries the attack needed a step-up.
‘Part of defence is also where we were defending,’ explained Townsend. ‘So if we do give up possession in our 22, it is hard to defend and the consequences are much greater.
‘They kicked into the 22 and obviously we didn’t handle a couple of restarts. That just gave them a footing in our 22 and they came away with points through tries on every occasion in the second half.
‘But while we scored a number of points in an international, which is not usually the case when you have two very physical teams, attack was so-so.
‘I think we did very well with our set-piece attack, so our lineout maul was very good. Some of the fast-pace attack that we wanted to put into the first half worked well, but we probably didn’t play our best rugby until 35 minutes. Then we played much more of what we are capable of doing.
‘I think we scored two tries in that period and scored a try early in the second half but after that we made a few errors, which gave Samoa territory and some chances to attack us close to our line.
‘But Samoa played some really good rugby. They showed their power with some forward carries. Tim Nanai-Williams at ten moved the ball well and their centre (Rey Lee-Lo) we know is very good at breaking tackles and they did that on a few occasions. So I think they played very well.’