Rugby union: Scotland’s greatest victory

There was a time, not long ago, when watching Scotland play rugby was “so traumatising that it would require a lie down in a darkened room afterwards”, said Duncan Smith in The Scotsman. They picked up record after record, all of them unwanted: heaviest defeat; “longest run without a Six Nations win”. But last Saturday, in their sensational 53-24 win over Australia, the Scots finally made the right kind of history. It was their biggest victory over the Wallabies yet; never have they scored more points or tries (“an extraordinary eight”) against a tier-one rugby side. To hammer the third-ranked team in the world is “the stuff of heady dreams”: it was, surely, the greatest result in Scotland’s history. The Scots played with “invention, verve and ambition”, said Richard Bath in The Sunday Telegraph. Up front, the forwards dominated the collisions and produced “a remarkably effective driving maul”; behind the scrum, the backs “played an expansive, ambitious game”. The performance was all the more remarkable because Scotland were playing without their talisman, full-back Stuart Hogg, who injured his hip in the warm-up. Drafted in to replace him at the last minute, Byron Mcguigan enjoyed a dream debut: he scored a brace of tries and was named man of the match. It’s true that Scotland played with a “numerical advantage”, said Stuart Bathgate in The Guardian: Australia’s Sekope Kepu was sent off in the first half. But in the past, the Scots have actually struggled against 14 men; this time they exploited the red card with intelligence and ruthlessness. It was testament to the progress they have made under their new head coach, Gregor Townsend. Only six months into the job, he already has them playing “the highest-tempo rugby in the world”. In the process, he has produced “the most exciting Scotland side” this century.