Scotland’s frailties are cruelly exposed as Welsh go on red alert
WALES 34, SCOTLAND 7
Wales brutally exposed Scotland’s psychological glass jaw in the Principality Stadium.
When everything goes the Scots’ way, they’re very, very good, as we saw in the autumn.
But too often their knees are buckled by the first hint of adversity. Yesterday was a stark example of that.
They started ferociously and it looked like it would be only a matter of time before they got the try that would open the floodgates and wash Wales away.
Instead, after being in the driving seat for the sum total of six minutes, they gifted Wales a score and that was that, as the hosts racked up a bonus-point win.
Ali Price will replay his attempted floated pass to Jon Welsh in his mind endlessly in the coming weeks. Rightly so when there were two better recipients closer to hand.
But when his opposite number, Gareth Davies, plucked the ball out of the air and scampered in for a try from deep inside his own territory, Scotland never recovered.
Still reeling from that early blow, they lost their shape. The defence was far too narrow with Byron McGuigan’s frantic signals that he was alone and outnumbered on the left ignored by all in dark blue.
But not by those in red and, sure enough, Wales shifted the ball along the back line and it was all too easy for Leigh Halfpenny to barrel over for his first Test try in five years.
His two conversions meant Scotland, who had arrived in Cardiff as unaccustomed favourites, were on the wrong end of a 14-point deficit after not even that number of minutes.
And, instead of an away win that would set them up for a tilt at the title, Scotland’s Six Nations campaign was dealt a potentially knock-out blow.
Make no mistake, this was a real doing and Wales would have been closer to the halfcentury, but for a loose Alun Wyn Jones pass butchering one try and the TMO ruling out another.
Peter Horne scampered over for a lastminute consolation so Scotland just avoided the major humiliation of being nilled but, to be honest, that’s pretty much what they deserved.
Not one of Gregor Townsend’s marginal selection calls came off.
Chris Harris was anonymous and didn’t justify shifting Huw Jones to inside-centre to accommodate him. McGuigan was like a rabbit in the headlights and I don’t remember Cornell Du Preez, for all his sterling efforts in Edinburgh’s revival this season, touching the ball.
This was partly to blame for the absence of anyone carrying the ball for the visitors, making the hard yards, and that plus Finn Russell having one of his headless chicken off-days meant Scotland tried to force things which saw them bedevilled by errors and knock-ons.
If there is a silver lining it was that Welsh and Gordon Reid showed talk of a front-row crisis is wide of the mark.
If the first half was hard to watch, the second 40 was absolutely brutal.
You expected Scotland to come out all guns blazing, but it was Wales who re-emerged with their tails up and Halfpenny extended the lead twice in quick succession when John Barclay was penalised.
The second penalty was harsh but the first was utter stupidity as the normally coolheaded Scotland skipper looked punchdrunk when handling in the ruck right under the ref’s nose.
You got the impression then that, even with half-an-hour still to run, Scotland had mentally chucked it.
They just couldn’t clear their lines and it was no surprise when Halfpenny dived over for his second and then an acrobatic Steff Evans touchdown completed a thoroughly miserable afternoon for the travelling fans.