WHIRLWIND OF EMOTIONS
Swashbuckling style the way forward for Scotland to be great entertainers of rugby
END of argument. No need for further debate. From here on in, this is how Scotland will play. How they must play. In every single game.
The good news? With Gregor Townsend at the helm and Finn Russell seeming to levitate several planes above the mayhem in his role as on-field leader, there will be no backtracking.
No tip-toeing towards safer ground. No retreating into a more conservative brand of rugby prioritising damage limitation, keeping things tight and hoping to edge it on penalties.
Toony is not for turning. And his team’s performance in the greatest Calcutta Cup match of all time has earned him the right to stand firm.
Sure, the Scots may not have fully delivered on their head coach’s vision until there were less than 50 minutes remaining in the 2019 Six Nations Championship; not so much a day late and a dollar short as six weeks overdue and lacking the correct postage.
And it took a half-time intervention from Russell, persuading Townsend to keep even more of the ball in hand instead of kicking for territory, to turn Saturday’s game completely on its head.
Now that the world has seen what this team can achieve when they hit their stride, however, all of those calls for Townsend to tinker, tweak or even completely transform his approach will fade into the background noise.
The former Glasgow Warriors head coach will carry on with a philosophy that, when executed well, takes the breath away — and sends the soul soaring on unexpected adventures.
In becoming the first visiting side ever to score six tries against England in a Test match at Twickenham, going from 31-0 down to 38-31 up with just seconds left on the clock, the Scots sent out a message.
If they weren’t going to simply cover up and hope to avoid a beating when four tries adrift to the rampant, roaring, show-boating English, with the HQ crowd in full song, they never will.
And nor should they. Any team who can do this would be committing a crime against sport, should they actually shackle themselves to less adventurous tactics.
Townsend, despite his disappointment at Scotland not holding on for the victory on Saturday, is entitled to feel like he’s finally seeing a plan coming together.
Addressing the attacking intent and ambition his team showed in the most trying circumstances, he said: ‘It’s a credit to the players.
‘It’s a tough thing to do to go back out knowing that the team you’re playing against is on fire, running hard on to the ball, getting off the line in defence, and with history against us — the scoreboard against us, too.
‘To see that they didn’t lose faith and didn’t give in, that they went at the opposition, that was great to see.
‘At the time, we were probably thinking that if we came back and showed a true picture of ourselves in the second half, and get a couple of tries and keep them try-less, that would be a positive achievement to move on to the World Cup.
‘It’s tough when you’re 30 points down. A lot of players played here two years ago and the final scoreline (61-21) was very different as well.
‘It’s tough to get back into the process of working out how to get some respect back.
‘But what they did was amazing. Thirty-eight unanswered points, 31 in the second half, that was a real credit to them and showed what they are capable of doing.
‘It showed when we get things right — and that could be in the system, in effort, in communication, in belief — then we can do special things.’
Whether they’ll ever be good enough to break out of international rugby’s strictly stratified class structure, Scotland are going to be great fun in this World Cup year.
Even if an inability to stop the opposition obviously remains a concern. Nobody, least of all defence coach Matt Taylor, can be happy with the Scots shipping five tries. The first after just 66 seconds.
England had three tries on the board by the time we’d played a dozen minutes, then had another disallowed before bagging their fourth just before the half-hour mark.
At this stage, they were actively taking the Mickey, pulling off little backhand passes and gallus sidesteps just for the sheer thrill of seeing the Scots suffer; Eddie Jones and his men were badly hurt by last year’s loss at BT Murrayfield, remember.
There was something distinctly uncomfortable about watching so many Scots go mad for Stuart McInally’s ‘consolation try’ after 34 minutes. Like watching one of the diddy nations just happy to be on the scoreboard at all.
None of the Scots genuinely believed that score represented the start of an actual comeback, with all the half-time talk merely about winning the second 40.
What happened next, well, it will be eulogised, analysed and talked about for as long as rugby is played.
First, pocket powerhouse Darcy Graham bobbed and barged his way over in the left corner to make it 31-12, with the clock showing 47 minutes gone.
Two minutes later, Magnus Bradbury ran a brilliant support line to capitalise on Ali Price’s superb chip-and-collect kick over the top. Make that 31-19.
With 56 minutes gone, another spectacular Russell pass set up Sean Maitland to feed Graham on the right wing. Now it was 31-24.
And the equalising score came from Russell himself, who had now spooked Owen Farrell to such a degree that the England stand-off wouldn’t last much longer before being hooked by Jones.
Russell’s intercept and dash to the line from Farrell’s loose pass sent the Scots scattered around Twickenham mad with delight.
There was more to come, just five minutes from time, Sam Johnson sending white jerseys falling, flailing, flying and flat-out failing to stop the centre as he took another perfect Russell pass and turned it into seven points.
Only eight seconds remained when Fraser Brown was penalised for handling on the deck at the halfway line. Eight sodding seconds from glory, eh? That’s so Scottish. Handed the initiative, an England team who had barely been in the game for the entire second half just cranked up the pressure — and got their equalising try through George Ford, under the posts, with 83 minutes on the clock. On a day when Ben Toolis made 24 tackles and Hamish Watson just the 18, the Scots simply couldn’t keep the hosts out to clinch a famous victory.
‘That’s really disappointing,’ admitted Townsend (left). ‘There was chat after the game among management and players that maybe we should have let them score in the corner (to make the conversion harder).
‘But you can’t fault the effort. Adam Hastings had a great tackle in the corner and the players were doing all they could to stop England scoring.
‘You would never think about letting a team score in the corner because of the standard of goal kicking these days.
‘We will be disappointed when we watch it again. The players are disappointed.
‘In the context of this game, a win is important, yes, as I do understand the place in history. But it would not help us win the Championship.
‘But we played for a trophy, so to be able to retain it means we have something tangible from the effort that went in.’
Winning the right to keep hold of the Calcutta Cup, something no Scotland side has done since 1984, will be a source of pride to players who have underperformed for most of this Six Nations.
Winning the argument on the best way forward for a team struggling to realise their potential? Arguably much more important, in the long run.
When we get it right we can do special things