Laidlaw: Win was never in doubt
SCOTLAND captain Greig Laidlaw insisted that his side were never going to lose to Argentina as they summoned the frustrations from defeat to Australia to claim victory in another dramatic finale.
After losing by a point to a late kick against Australia in their last two meetings, Scotland were level at 16-16 in a gruelling Test match with the Pumas at Murrayfield. Laidlaw then hit the same right-hand post that last week denied him a conversion, and watched Finn Russell miss two drop-goal attempts. Deep into stoppage-time, however, Laidlaw stepped up to win it with a fourth penalty strike of the night.
‘It doesn’t like me, that one,’ Laidlaw said of the post. ‘The ball just stayed dead straight. I struck it lovely but it hung out on the right and the boys were giving me stick for taking two to win it. But I was happy to see the second one go between the posts.
‘It was credit to the whole team and that was the key after they (Argentina) scored — that was the message when we were together under the posts. It was: “Don’t panic, we can score tries”, and we hit straight back and scored, and pegged them back straight away. That was psychological.
‘We’re still annoyed from that Australia game, so we’re delighted to get on the right side of one today. But we never thought we’d lose.’
He added: ‘Vern (Cotter) said at half-time that it was going to be a tight game and that it would be won by a penalty here or there, or maybe a mistake, and it turned into that kind of game and we had to adapt. The forwards rolled their sleeves up brilliantly, taking the game to them and beating them up, and that gave us the field position to get the penalty.’