I HOPE BLAIR GETS A CHANCE TO PROVE PEOPLE WRONG... Andy Nicol
THAT was his moment. I wrote in this column on Saturday that this game was the chance for Blair Kinghorn to put the whole stand-off debate to bed. Well, for now anyway. With one confident swing of his right leg, Kinghorn could have won over thousands of Scottish fans pining for Finn Russell by hitting the winning kick in a tight match. Sadly, he didn’t and the throng of his detractors will have increased. I will never criticise a kicker for missing a kick because these things happen and he had the guts to put himself forward. International rugby is a game of fine margins and Kinghorn missed two efforts which were eminently kickable, and Scotland lost the game by one point. That is the reality of what happened. That is the lens through which we all have to view what took place at BT Murrayfield. Scotland were lucky for years to call on the likes of Chris Paterson and Greig Laidlaw, who knocked over those types of kicks in their sleep. What made things worse for Kinghorn was that the player he has replaced kicked 23 points for his club side, Racing 92, just a few hours earlier. Kinghorn played well. His passing and kicking were good and he showed his footballing ability, pace and composure to score a try which put Scotland in a winning position. Leading by 15-6 and deep in Australia’s 22, Scotland should have closed the game out and won without playing near their best. They didn’t and then they lost a bit of their composure and allowed Australia to claw their way back into the game, giving their experienced stand-off, Bernard Foley, a chance to win the game. He has been here before, kicking England out of their own World Cup in 2015, and you just knew he was going to make the winning kick. Kinghorn was the better stand-off on the day but Foley won the game for his team. That is what international stand-offs do, they get their team into a winning position and then step up when they are needed. That is what Blair Kinghorn aspires to. This is what he needs to achieve to win over all those people out there that doubt him and want someone else to be picked instead of him. He didn’t take his chance and I really hope he gets another one to prove people wrong.