Hogg’s heaven no piece of cake
Italy Scotland
22 33 GREGOR TOWNSEND admitted that any repeat of Scotland’s poor finish to this game would see them getting punished by better teams than Italy.
The Scots scored five tries in a helter-skelter contest at Rome’s Stadio Olimpico – but they also allowed the Six Nations whipping boys to cross for three.
Two of those Italy scores came in the final 20 minutes, a period in which Scotland did not manage a single point.
“We’re delighted with the win, it’s been a tough venue over the years,” said head coach Townsend.
“We played well until the 50-minute mark and after that we weren’t as good. But that’s the best I’ve seen Italy play over the last couple of seasons.”
The Italians went into the match without a Six Nations victory since winning away to Scotland in 2015, and in the early stages it looked like they might finally end their seven-year drought.
But the visitors rallied from a sluggish start to open a nine-point half-time lead with two Chris Harris tries – either side of Callum Braley’s Italy counter – after Sam Johnson crossed.
Darcy Graham and
Stuart Hogg extended the advantage, but the visitors’ defending was lax in an untidy and disjointed bonus-point victory.
And Ange Capuozzo provided home consolation by scoring twice in the closing stages.
Scotland scrum-half Ali Price said: “We came here to get five points and that’s what we achieved. It is about not switching off.
“We had scoreboard pressure on them and we talk about trying to be relentless in that situation, not giving teams a sniff and keeping going for the full 80 minutes.
“That is the challenge. We’ll take confidence from the win into next week against Ireland, which will be an even bigger challenge.”
ITALY: Tries: Braley, Capuozzo 2; Cons: Garbisi 2; Pen: Garbisi.
SCOTLAND: Tries: Johnson, Harris 2, Graham, Hogg; Cons: Russell 4.