I had to lift myself after Irish howler
SCOTLAND are three points up against Ireland in a game billed as make-orbreak for their Six Nations title chances. There are 21 minutes gone in Dublin and they are on the attack.
Greig Laidlaw picks the ball up and feeds Finn Russell. He shuffles the ball from hand to hand before giving it to Peter Horne. There are three men — Stuart Hogg, Huw Jones and Blair Kinghorn — on his outside. A try is on.
Frustratingly, the move collapses — at a high cost. Horne’s telegraphed pass for Kinghorn, the furthest away of the three, is picked off by Jacob Stockdale.
The Irish winger runs half the length of the park to score unopposed as Hogg gives up the chase.
‘It was a gift,’ admitted Horne. ‘I felt if I got it right I could put Blair Kinghorn away to score, but it was the wrong decision. The moment the ball left my hands I knew I had made a mistake.
‘I looked up at the big screen and realised when I saw the replay that Shuggie (Jones), who was closer in to me, was the ball. I was really down at that moment but I knew I had to pick myself up and get on with it. There was a long way to go.’
Things didn’t get any better for the Scots. Three try-scoring opportunities in all were wasted on their way to a 28-8 defeat.
Horne paid the price for his own below-par performance by losing his starting place against Italy.
It says much, then, for the character of the man from Fife that, when he got his chance from the bench in Rome, he was one of the team’s pivotal performers in a nail-biting 29-27 victory — his display hailed for its ‘energy and verve’ by Gregor Townsend.
‘I was really down after the Ireland match. I didn’t think I did myself justice,’ recalled the centre.
‘When I went in on the Monday, though, and looked through my game, I had made 21 tackles by our own stats and had done some really good things.
‘I spoke to Gregor, who said I’d made a couple of mistakes and he was going to give Nick Grigg a go against Italy. At least I was on the bench and maybe would get a chance to make amends.
‘With it being just a seven-day turnaround I knew I had to dust
myself off and get ready to go again.’ His chance came on 52 minutes, with Scotland 24-12 down and under pressure from the Azzurri. As replacement for a struggling Jones, Horne brought an urgency to the Scotland midfield that had been sorely lacking.
When Russell went off with a head knock and Laidlaw moved from nine to ten, he took on more responsibility in the attack — helping energise the team on its way to turning round the deficit.
‘I was chuffed how things turned out, especially after the previous week,’ said the 28-year-old Glasgow Warriors star. ‘When I came on, it wasn’t looking good. We were needing a bit of a spark so I just tried to be busy and work hard. We got a couple of tries and dominated the last 20 minutes. It may have been an ugly win but it was a win.’
Townsend reserved special praise for one of the fall guys from Dublin.
‘I thought Peter Horne was excellent,’ said the head coach after his team ended their campaign with a third victory. ‘He really added spark, verve and energy and maybe that is what we were lacking in the first half.’
Victory in Rome brought the curtain down on another rollercoaster Six Nations for the Scots — and for Horne himself.
Scorer of a last-minute consolation try in the disastrous opening-day 34-7 defeat in Cardiff, he was instrumental in the ensuing victories over France and England.
But he acknowledges it was far from a perfect championship for Scotland, just as he accepts his own culpability in failing to get the job done in the pivotal game with Grand Slam-winning Ireland.
‘That score (against Wales) was my most low-key score ever and one I didn’t think much about as we were getting hosed at the time,’ said Horne.
‘Three wins out of five for the second year in a row is a decent run but we could have done better. We wanted to win the Six Nations and we put ourselves in a position ahead of the Ireland game to do that.
‘That game was the vital one. We would have been right in the mix on the final weekend if we’d beaten them.
‘We could have been right up there pushing for the title but didn’t help ourselves with our mistakes. It was very frustrating.
‘We gifted them 14 points and they got the rumble on at the maul. It didn’t feel like there was much between the teams.
‘At no point did it feel like it was getting away from us but we just weren’t accurate enough when we had try-scoring opportunities.
‘At Glasgow, we want our conversion rate from line breaks to tries to be at least one in three,’ said Horne. ‘At international level, it probably has to be one in two.
‘That was the difference. Ireland showed they were a world-class team who take their chances.
‘Can we challenge for the title next season? Absolutely. We’ve shown we can mix it with anyone. If we start converting our chances and be a bit more clinical we can start coming out on the right side of the scoreboard a bit more.’
Horne will be given the next two weeks off before returning to a Warriors team just two wins away from finishing top of their conference table and securing a home Pro14 semi-final.
Then he hopes to be part of Scotland’s summer tour to the USA, Canada and Argentina where he could end up playing alongside younger brother George.
The 22-year-old scrum-half was taken to Italy for experience by Townsend and with a view to going on tour in a few months’ time.
‘George is loving being around the squad, getting the experience of it all,’ revealed the elder Horne.
‘He’s desperate to get back to Glasgow to play before going away with the Scotland sevens to the Commonwealth Games. It’s been a whirlwind season for him and he’s been doing brilliantly.’