Shaky Scots forced to
Five tries and a bonus point, but Hogg’s men will need to improve for trip to Dublin
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T was not the polished performance they were looking for, but Scotland picked up the bonus-point win they needed in Rome yesterday afternoon, scoring five well-taken tries along the way, to generate some winning momentum ahead of next weekend’s step up in class against Ireland.
The target for this Six Nations campaign was to at least match last year’s record of three wins from five matches, which requires a win in Dublin.
It would be a huge achievement if Gregor Townsend’s boys manage to pull that off, and they know they will have to play an awful lot better over the full 80 minutes than they did during this patchy performance.
The team’s recent losses to Wales and France had clearly shaken confidence, which was evident as Scotland struggled to find a rhythm during the opening quarter-of-an-hour of this match, committing several unforced errors including the concession of three soft penalties, with a lazy offside straight from a line-out on four minutes allowing Paolo Garbisi to nudge the hosts into a threepoint lead.
Against higher calibre opposition this game could have been out of sight before the Scots had fired a shot.
Eventually, however, things clicked for the visitors on 18 minutes when captain Stuart Hogg countered from deep, Darcy Graham provided the link, and George Turner set off like a runaway bison up the right touchline. Ali Price – who ended up manof-the-match – carried the move on, and when he was brought down 15 yards from glory, Graham reappeared to scoop up possession and feed Finn Russell, who fired one of his trademark miss-passes leftward for Sam Johnson to score in the corner.
Italy came back hard, aided by a loose pass from Russell, which Azzurri No.8 Toa Halafihi latched on to and carried deep into Scotland’s 22.
But the visitors rode their luck, then delivered a length-of-the-park suckerpunch, which came from a Price interception on his own line and featured a smart chip ahead from Kyle Steyn to send Chris Harris on an unchallenged canter under the sticks.
It was a bitter pill to swallow for the home side, but a lack of resilience is not one of the many problems facing Italy as they battle to be competitive members of the Six Nations community, and they dug deep again.
After a long-range penalty attempt from Garbisi fell short, the home side’s perseverance was finally rewarded when a set move straight off scrum ball in the middle of the park, culminated in Pierre Bruno passing back inside just before being bundled into touch by Hogg, to provide Callum Braley with the simplest of finishes.
Scotland, however, had the last word of the half with a scrum move of their own, with Russell and Hogg combining to tie up Italy’s midfield defence before Harris hit the line hard to score his second try.
Two out of three conversions from Russell meant the Scots were nine points ahead at the break, but they still did not look entirely sure of themselves, squandering possession twice in five minutes before it finally clicked again when Graham collected an inside pass from Russell and scrambled home on 48 minutes to bring up the bonus point.
Then Price took just enough time to weigh up his options after gathering possession in the backfield for a gap to open up which he happily darted through, and while his pass to Hogg almost certainly floated forward, referee Luke Pearce was content to attribute that to momentum and promptly raised his arm to award Scotland their fifth try.
At last, it looked like Scotland might be about to rediscover some of the swagger that has not been seen since
Graham’s try in the first half of their round two match against Wales – but then they lost their way.
Meanwhile, Italy were down, but they were not prepared to drop out of this match without a fight, and they struck back through replacement winger Ange Capuozzo, with Garbisi’s touchline conversion making it 17-33 with just over 10 minutes left to play.
The home team dominated the remainder of the match and the Scots had to dig deep to keep their line intact, which they managed to do until the third minute of injury time, when Capuozzo wriggled over for his second try.
It was not enough to salvage a bonus point but will provide the Azzurri with some sort of morale boost as they continue to scrap to stay relevant in this championship.