It was close but no cigar and the table doesn’t lie

IT is tough being a Scotland player, or indeed a Scotland supporter, just now.

Once more, basic errors cost us a game we could have won against Wales, and a couple of soft tries gave the home team the victory.

The turning point for me was when John Hardie lost the ball in contact in the Welsh half and Tom James ran 80 metres with it. Wales didn’t score directly from that move, but James’s break set up good field position from which Jamie Roberts’ try eventually followed.

If we had scored then, when we were 16-13 ahead, it would have been a massive boost for us and could have produced a very different game. As it was, Wales got that try, then another through George North which was the softest I’ve seen at this level for some time. Matt Taylor, Scotland’s defence coach, must have been tearing his hair out at that point.

The errors are not as frequent as they were, but they’re still costly.

Another came when John Barclay kicked ahead rather than passing inside to Stuart Hogg. The full-back would not necessarily have scored, but he would have had a good chance, and it would have been a better option than kicking away possession – something we continue to do too regularly.

I can’t remember the last time I saw so many charge-downs in a game, and two or three went against Finn Russell. Finn still needs to tighten up his game and rediscover his best form, but, having said that, he did put in an excellent kick for Tommy Seymour’s try.

Having had one of his poorest games for Scotland against England, Tommy had his best international against Wales. His fielding of the high ball was exceptional, and he’d obviously been working really hard on that in training. His liveliness epitomised all that was best about Scotland’s play.

Similarly, Greig Laidlaw, after being criticised for too slow service at times against England, speeded the game up really well against Wales and ensured the backs got quick ball. You won’t see much better than the 21-phase move that led to the Seymour try – if the All Blacks or the Wallabies had produced a score like that, everyone the world over would have been going on about how good it was.

If Scotland got their reward at that point, Wales received theirs in the build-up to the Roberts try, when they opted to have a scrum rather than take a penalty in front of the posts that was a guaranteed three points,

That try and the North one that came soon after it pushed Wales just too far ahead.

Duncan Taylor’s try gave the final score a more accurate reflection of the game as a whole, and it was also just reward for the way in which he played over the piece. He’s been in good form for Saracens, and I was impressed with his play in both attack and defence.

So there were some real positives about Scotland’s play, both in terms of individual performances and teamwork. but, having said that, we’re sitting here again looking at a table in which we have zero points.

The praise the team is getting for playing well in defeat is starting to get painful – even Jeremy Guscott has started to say that we’re doing well.

One area where we do need to strengthen is the bench, both its use and its composition. Other countries have benches that offer their coaches real options to change the game, and I don’t think ours has that, although hopefully that will be different when two or three players come back from injury.

I’m not convinced by the trend to take your captain off late in the game. England did that with Dylan Hartley at Murrayfield and Scotland did that on Saturday with Greig. Why do that with five or 10 minutes to go when he is the man providing leadership and, in Greig’s case, dictating the tempo?

The same goes for replacing Finn with Duncan Weir. Finn is more of a running fly-half and is a better option when you’re chasing the game.

Also, it looked like Vern Cotter was reluctant to bring Zander Fagerson on, even though WP Nel was tiring.

Zander is a really promising player, but obviously inexperienced at this level. Either we have a tighthead prop we’re confident of bringing on or we don’t.

You’ve got a bench: you’ve got to be able to use it to the full.

We’re now in a very similar position to last year. Our first two games then were lost, but showed a lot of promise. We should then have beaten Italy at Murrayfield, and perhaps the team presumed they would, but failure to do so had a demoralising effect. That shows how important it is to win in Rome.

I thought before the tournament started that we could win three games, and that’s still possible. I expected us to win one of our first two, but I’m still optimistic. If we beat Italy, getting the better of France at home then Ireland away becomes a realistic proposition.