Bring on the English!
Scots score a sensational first victory over the Welsh in 10 years – now for a Twickenham showdown next month
Finally, after all the false dawns and heartbreaking last-minute losses, Scotland carved out a gloriously emphatic win that has confirmed their arrival as major Six Nations players. Vern Cotter’s men now head to Twickenham in search of a first Triple Crown since the Grand Slam year of 1990, yet there is a palpable belief in Edinburgh that this team is far from the finished article, that there is much more to come.
They were ruthless, spirited, invencase. tive and relentlessly committed. The virtues that Scotland deployed at Murrayfield yesterday were more than enough to overwhelm a Wales side who had arrived in highly confident mood and who took an early lead through a Liam Williams try.
When Leigh Halfpenny lined up an easy kick three minutes before halftime with Wales leading 13-6, having edged a jittery first half, it was difficult to believe that Scotland would go on to run away with this match, even after the half ended with a Finn Russell penalty to make it 13-9 to Wales at the interval.
Yet in a remarkable second half, Scotland utterly dominated possession, territory, the breakdown and the scoreboard. Twenty unanswered points, a faultless kicking performance from man of the match Russell and two superb wide tries, the first from Tommy Seymour and the second from Tim Visser, torpedoed the visitors.
By the time Russell kicked his last penalty in the 72nd minute to take his tally for the day to 19 points, Scotland were bristling with intensity and accuracy at the breakdown while Wales were haggard, hapless and increasingly shapeless.
Perhaps a confrontation in the tunnel between Richie Gray and Wales No 8 Ross Moriarty was the catalyst. If that rammy was indeed the spark for the 40 minutes of controlled mayhem that followed, Cotter will already be working out how to provoke more bare-fisted shenanigans at future games.
“I was really happy, really happy,” said Cotter. “We set out to win and at half-time weren’t particularly wellpositioned, but the players adjusted well, we scored a couple of nice tries and transferred pressure back on to the Welsh team. It was a good second half.
“I am very proud of that response, the boys went out and took the game to the Welsh. It’s been a while since we could sit here and talk about a win over Wales. We are on a roll but we know how hard it will be at Twickenham – if England win tomorrow we will be there for their record game so there will be a lot to play for.”
The ramifications of this match are far-reaching for Wales, even more so for Scotland. If the Scots win at Twickenham for the first time since 1983 – before every member of this side was born – they will not only win the Triple Crown but make a Six Nations title highly likely. It would also confirm Cotter, whose departure from the Scotland stage next month is an involuntary exit, as the most successful Scotland coach of all time.
If this was Cotter’s finest tactical hour, it was also an unexpected coming of age for several others given that watching Lions coach Warren Gatland will now find it impossible to ignore several of yesterday’s standouts. It was no surprise that the back three was outstanding, but Russell’s dominant and well-judged performance against a major rival surely played him into contention.
Several forwards also pushed their On this form, the Gray brothers must be a shoo-in, while some unlikely also-rans – Hamish Watson, Fraser Brown and Ryan Wilson – transformed into Lions dark horses before our eyes.
But it was unflappable captain John Barclay whose stock rose most significantly, especially given how much the Scots feared the loss of talismanic Greig Laidlaw might affect them. The Scarlets skipper was immense in every phase, and, ever phlegmatic, kept a cool head even when referee John Lacey failed to give nailed-on yellow cards to Rhys Webb for a professional foul on Tommy Seymour and, even more egregiously, to Justin Tipuric for a second-half tip-tackle on Russell that could have merited a red.
That cool head was important during a jittery first half which started with a Russell penalty after five minutes, with two more following on the half-
hour and in the last action before halftime. In between, Halfpenny responded with two penalties of his own, but it was Wales who scored the only try of the first half when Scotland’s scrum, which did not give an inch while Gordon Reid was on, was penalised with a free-kick just into the second quarter. Scrum-half Webb, who was comfortably Wales’s best player, took a quick tap and moved the ball left, Halfpenny shipping the ball on and Liam Williams powering through a weak cover tackle from Stuart Hogg.
Trailing 13-9 at half-time, Scotland roared back after the interval, and within three minutes the home side
had taken a lead they were never to relinquish. It may have been the precision of the forwards at the breakdown which was the anvil on which this match was won, but the slick handling and creativity of Scotland’s backs was the hammer.
Russell was the catalyst once again, throwing a huge pass to Hogg, whose slightly delayed pass put Visser, roaming off his wing, into space. The Dutchman’s pass freed Seymour, the wing beating Liam Williams and holding off Scott Williams’ cover tackle for a try of true quality matched by Russell’s touchline conversion.
Scotland’s scrambling defence was put to the test twice in 10 minutes when Scott Williams made a great break and looked likely to score, and then when the ball bobbled out of a Scotland scrum
and Webb beat Henry Pyrgos down the blindside, only for Visser’s cover tackle to force the Welshman’s foot to graze the touchline a fraction before he touched down.
Russell kicked another penalty to make it 19-13, but the match turned on Scotland’s superb second try, when their forwards showed enormous patience and precision to grind their way to the Wales line on 66 minutes before Pyrgos went left and Russell threw a huge flat miss-pass which Hogg deftly flicked on to allow Visser to scuttle down the touchline.
Russell added another penalty with eight minutes remaining. But by then Scottish minds were already beginning to dream of Twickenham.