Cardiff heartache Goes on for Scots
Losing run continues as champions bounce back
IT does not get any easier over time. Scotland’s losing streak in Cardiff will now stretch into a third decade and there is little comfort to be drawn from this being the narrowest of the 10 losses endured at the Principality Stadium – previously called the Millennium Stadium – since 2002.
It is the hope that kills you. With these teams experiencing wildly contrasting Six Nations opening weekends, you would have been hard-pressed to find a punter in red or navy blue around Cardiff yesterday morning ready to bet big on the home side.
But last year’s champions – even with 600 caps worth of experience out injured – had not become a bad team overnight.
They are limited, but they needed this win – and in front of a febrile crowd of over 70,000 they found a way to achieve their goal. The decisive moment in the match might have been the yellow carding of Finn Russell with the scores tied and just over 10 minutes to play, but it should not be overlooked that this was the act of a desperate man who cracked under the pressure Wales were exerting at that point.
A positive start from Scotland featured Matt Fagerson brushing off Taine Basham in the first minute to take play into the Welsh strike zone, but Darcy Graham lost the ball in contacts which allowed Owen Watkin to break from deep. He was supported by Dan Biggar and Tomos Williams, and Stuart Hogg was perhaps lucky not to be sanctioned for a deliberate knock-on which stopped this promising home attack.
WP Nel was penalised for collapsing at the resulting scrum and Biggar stepped forward to fire Wales into a 3-0 lead to settle nerves after last weekend’s heavy defeat to Ireland.
Russell then kicked the re-start out on the full which allowed the hosts to charge straight back on to the offensive, and Biggar doubled his own and his team’s account with the game still not eight minutes old, when Scotland were penalised for not rolling away.
Ali Price’s flat pass to release Duhan van de Merwe up the left touchline ignited the Scottish fight-back, and that move was finished off 17 phases later on the opposite side of the park when a classic Russell miss-two pass gave Graham the sliver of space he needed to scramble past Louis Rees-Zammit and dot down in the corner.
Russell could not manage the tricky conversion, but he nailed a penalty from in front of the posts a few minutes later when Welsh debutant Jac Morgan was penalised for being in front of his kicker, and Scotland quickly repeated the trick when Wales were penalised for coming in at the side to slow a line-out maul.
It had been a good 10-minute spell for Scotland, but Wales were never going to just roll over and they struck next when Grant Gilchrist was penalised for falling on the wrong side of a tackler right in front of his own posts, and Biggar kicked the easy points.
That score was almost immediately cancelled out by Russell after a Hamish Watson jackal earned a holding-on penalty for Scotland against Basham, who had been trying to run a sloppy line-out overthrow away from Wales’ danger zone, before a brilliant 50-22 from Liam Williams swung momentum back towards the home team.
When Scotland – Sam Skinner on this occasion – were penalised for the third time in the match for lying on the wrong side, prompting a team warning from referee Nic Berry, it allowed Biggar to kick to the corner and Tomas Francis got the ball down after
a powerful line-out maul. That squared the match with just over half-an-hour played, and it stayed that way until half time.
Scotland struck first after the break when another long passage of play, featuring powerful surges from Sione Tuipulotu and Graham, eventually yielded a not-rolling away penalty which Russell fired home from in front of the posts.
But Biggar squared it again when George Turner– one third of Scotland’s front-row bomb-squad which had been deployed off the bench on 44 minutes – was penalised for offside.
The 62nd minute brought Rory Darge his long-awaited international debut off the bench in place of Jonny Gray, but it was not the triumphant experience he will have spent years dreaming of.
A few minutes later, a longrange penalty from Biggar rebounded back off the bar and Alex Cuthbert was first on the scene to scoop up the loose ball. Chris Harris managed to snuff out the immediate threat, but Wales kept banging at the door and the TMO was required to rule that Cuthbert’s foot had strayed into touch as he dived for glory in the corner a few phases later.
No try, but Russell was sent to the sin-bin for a deliberate knock-on earlier on in the move and Wales ran the penalty, which created the platform for Biggar to drop the goal which sealed the win with 10 minutes to go.