SCOTS LOOKED FLAT

SCOTLAND got there in the end — but that was a bit of a slog at times as they laboured to victory against Fiji at BT Murrayfield yesterday.

Let’s be honest, it wasn’t a performance that will live long in the memory. Scotland are still a long way from their best form.

In terms of a rating, I don’t think you can give their performance much more than a six or maybe six-and-a-half out of ten.

It was flat. I was looking forward to hopefully seeing the Scots cut loose and play with a bit of style and freedom, but it just never happened.

There was a point in the second half when the crowd were doing a Mexican wave. That’s always a telltale sign that the game itself is pretty dull as a spectacle.

Credit to the Fijians, though. They were excellent at times. Their backrow were outstanding in the first half, carrying the ball with real power and intent.

They were camped inside Scotland’s 22 for long periods of the first half and should really have had more points on the scoreboard to show for their pressure.

They were battering on Scotland’s

door at times. If they had managed to score another try and get ahead on the scoreboard at half-time, it could have been a very different outcome.

Fiji will probably look back on this as one that got away. Given their lack of preparation heading into the game, that doesn’t reflect well on Scotland.

The Fijians started to tire towards the end as the hosts eventually managed to kill the game off as a contest, but none of the Scotland players really set it alight.

We made heavy weather of it and failed to find any real rhythm. In the first half especially, the discipline was very poor.

That’s the second week in a row we’ve said that about their discipline. This is now becoming a real problem for Gregor Townsend and it’s something he touched on after the Australia game last week.

It was so needless as well. There were so many unforced errors as Scotland were caught offside time and time again.

We got away with it to an extent. But better teams than Fiji would have really punished us for such constant indiscipline.

One thing’s for sure, we need to see a massive improvement next week against the All Blacks.

If we keep giving away such soft penalties, they will just eat up territory for fun.

That would give the likes of Richie Mo’unga and Beauden Barrett the platform to go on the attack — and that really is a frightening prospect for any team.