Scots have fun as they secure historic win over the sad Azzurri
SCOTLAND 52 ITALY 10
“We had a lot of fun.”
That was skipper Stuart Hogg’s assessment as Scotland racked up their record score in Five and Six Nations history in a desperately one-sided game at
BT Murrayfield.
“We’ve got smiles on our faces and the best feeling ever is winning in a Scotland jersey.”
The home side ran in no fewer than eight tries as the dreadfully disappointing Azzurri went down to their 32nd consecutive championship defeat.
Dave Cherry and Duhan van der Merwe helped themselves to two tries apiece while Darcy Graham, Huw Jones, Scott Steele and Sam Johnson all crossed the whitewash, Stuart Hogg adding six conversions.
Cherry’s scores were textbook maul tries scored after hoofing a penalty into the corner while Jones’ try was the pick of the bunch, finishing off a thrilling handling move to bring up the four-try bonus point before the half-hour.
It’s just a shame there were no home fans in the stands to cheer their favourites hitting the half-century.
You dread to think what the scoreline would have been had Scotland had their first-pick halfback pairing of Finn Russell – out with a concussion – and Ali Price pulling the strings.
As it was, it’s difficult to read too much into the experiment of playing skipper Hogg at 10, such was the limited opposition.
Hogg obviously revelled in getting the ball in hand more often than he does at full-back and had Scotland playing in the right areas of the paddock. But it made for slightly-disjointed distribution with too many passes going astray or behind the intended recipient as the team’s timing was off.
This meant Scotland actually left a few tries out on the pitch, especially a butchered chance when Italy were briefly reduced to 13 men, the situation not helped by the somewhat pedestrian service of scrum-half Scott Steele, who lacks the zippy delivery and sniping threat of his rivals for the No. 9 shirt.
This was definitely the game to try Hogg as principal playmaker but I think the most that can be said is that it’s probably an option only as a last resort.
He said: “If we’re brutally honest, we could have had another couple of tries in the first half and maybe the second but the boys expressed themselves, we showed what we’re about.”
Italy didn’t help themselves with Federico Mori, Sebastian Negri and Montanna Ioane all spending 10 minutes in the sin bin, Scotland taking full advantage when their opponents were short-handed.
But speaking of discipline, Scotland’s hasn’t been great of late and was poor again yesterday with far too many dull penalties conceded.
The difference was that while Wales and Ireland were able to take full advantage, Italy weren’t.
Franco Smith is trying to build a new team around promising youngsters – his half-backs are 19 and 20 years old – but it remains to be seen whether they can mature while continually being on the wrong end of heavy defeats.
Indeed, the only way they could have won yesterday would have been if referee Pascal Gauzere had blown for full-time immediately after captain Luca Bigi had scored their shock sixthminute opener.
But the day belonged to Scotland with a few players putting their hands up for Lions consideration after a ropey couple of weeks, forcing Italy to make a staggering 258 tackles.
Jamie Ritchie was splendid as ever, Sam Johnson was everywhere, Hogg was full of beans, Van der Merwe was always a threat and Man of the Match Hamish Watson was his usual force of nature at the breakdown and on the charge.
More of the same in Paris on Friday would make this a successful Six Nations. SCOTLAND: Maitland (Van der Walt 55); Graham, Jones, Johnson (Harris 67), Van der Merwe; Hogg (Capt.), Steele (Price 55); Sutherland (Bhatti 49), Cherry (Turner 49), Z. Fagerson (Berghan 49), Skinner, Gilchrist (Craig 62), Ritchie, Watson (Haining 67), M. Fagerson.
ITALY : Padovani; Bellini, Brex, Mori (Zanon 54), Ioane; Garbisi (Canna 54), Varney (Violi 70); Fischetti (Lovotti 70), Bigi (Capt.)(Lucchese 70), Riccione (Zilocchi 33), Cannone, Ruzza (Mbanda 62), Negri, Meyer (Favretto 76), Lamaro.