HARD HIT TING VIEW

It’s not been a good week to be a Scottish rugby fan

FOR fans of Scottish rugby, it hasn’t been a great week.

Firstly, no Scots were selected for the 23 to face the All Blacks in the opening test match at Eden Park.

Gregor Townsend’s squad lost their final tour match to Fiji and finally, Doddie Weir, one of Scottish rugby’s favourite sons, announced that he was suffering from Motor Neurone Disease. No, not a good week at all. Warren Gatland’s Lions put up an immense fight in Auckland, where the All Blacks have not been defeated since 1994, yet still came up short.

For much of the game, they were fiercely competitive, yet lacked the cutting edge of the All Blacks and made too many relatively-simple mistakes.

With a back three that always looked to counter-attack, the Lions appeared very threatening.

But they rarely created opportunities that looked like breaking through a strong defence, while the dexterity, pace and directness of the All Blacks seemed to unsettle them and was a visible difference in the class of the two teams.

The breakdown battle was lost by the Lions and they must address that if they are to even the series in Wellington.

Similarly, they must re-invigorate the rush defence that has been so effective on tour to date.

Without that, a black-wash looks on the cards.

In Fiji, Townsend will have cause to be very disappointed with his players, who failed to back up a fantastic result against Australia last weekend with a good performance.

Lack of consistency is something that recent Scottish teams have suffered from. Yet under Cotter there were strong signs that this deficiency had been laid to rest.

Not so. Scotland simply did not turn up against a Fijian side, who clearly felt that they were there for the taking.

The defensive effort was sub-optimal – a long way off the heroics of the previous weekend and there was nowhere that Scotland were able to get an edge on their hosts.

Even without Finn Russell and Stuart Hogg, the players didn’t rise to the task.

It was very disappointing and has taken the gloss off what had been, up to that point, a fantastic start for Townsend.

Finally, the rugby world was shocked by Doddie Weir’s news that he had been struck down by the same disease as Joost Van Der Westhuizen.

Weir is a real character and, typically, has approached his situation selflessly, setting out to support the work done researching this condition.

Such is the character of the man, he will not be short of offers of support from everyone in rugby and beyond, all of whom will be thinking often and hard about him and his family, and wishing them all well.