Jekyll and Hyde show delivers an emphatic victory for Toony’s men
the city that inspired Robert Louis Stevenson’s monstrous tale, Scotland fittingly served up their most Jekyll and Hyde half-hour of rugby in years.
The opening 30 minutes in Edinburgh yesterday saw both the best and the worst of the Dark Blues.
The worst saw them cough up needless penalties, make basic errors and – just as in Cardiff last week – miss tackles to gift their South Seas visitors the lead.
But the best saw them execute a gameplan based on keeping the ball alive, score tries off a driving maul that worked very well and completely dominate their opponents’ pack at scrum time.
And the fact they scored no fewer than eight tries told you that the lack of composure shown in Cardiff last week was largely eradicated.
Coach Gregor Townsend described himself as delighted, and added: “Fiji were always going to be a tough opponent and we saw they can score from anywhere.
“But we stuck to our task and got a grip of the game.”
To get the negatives out of the way first, a stupid penalty by Ryan Wilson let Ben Volavola kick Fiji into a second-minute lead, an overthrow by Fraser Brown at a defensive lineout let Edinburgh’s Bill Mata score under the posts and a missed tackle by Allan Dell saw Semi Radradra cut through the midfield to put Fiji 17-14 ahead on the half-hour.
But losing the lead seemed to sting Scotland into sorting themselves out and from then on they largely controlled the match.
Three of Scotland’s tries came from driving mauls with Allan Dell, Brown and Jamie Ritchie getting the final touch.
Indeed, Brown thought he’d bagged a short-range brace and Greig Laidlaw was lining up the conversion when the TMO intervened, and the score was chalked off for obstruction by Ritchie.
Fiji had no answer – well, no legal answer – to the maul as both their second-rows, Tevita Cavubati and former Glasgow favourite Leone Nakarawa, were sin-binned within six minutes of each other for bringing it down.
It was while the visitors were down to 13 men that Scotland worked the ball wide to Tommy Seymour to dive over in the corner just before the interval to give Scotland a 21-17 half-time lead.
Seymour looked much more like his old self yesterday and he helped himself to a hat-trick of tries, the pick of the bunch coming when he came off his wing looking for work and cut a great line to take Laidlaw’s pop pass and barrel over the line.
Said Townsend: “Tommy had a really tough year last year, and to see him enjoying his rugby again at Glasgow and getting that transferred to Glasgow was great. He’s a really important player for us.”
The man on the opposite wing, Sean Maitland, also had a good game in both attack and defence and his hard work paid off with a try just after the interval, and Adam Hastings was cheered to the rafters when his first Test try brought up the half-century in the dying minutes.
Laidlaw kicked five conversions and Finn Russell two.
With the game safe in the second half, Townsend took the opportunity to try out a few things.
Exeter’s Sam Skinner, making his debut, was switched from the second row to the back row and looked just as comfortable and that versatility is just what you want when picking a World Cup squad.
He went well enough but many, hat-trick hero Seymour probably more than anyone, were surprised when he was named man of the match.
Hogg; Seymour, Dunbar (Harris 49), P. Horne (Hastings 71), Maitland; Russell, Laidlaw (Capt.)(g. Horne 61); Dell (Allan 55), Brown (Mcinally 52), Nel (Berghan 55), Skinner, Gilchrist, Wilson (Gray 61), Ritchie, Fagerson (Strauss 29).
Tuicuvu (Vasiteri 23); Talebula (Veitokani 64), Radradra, Vatabua, Goneva; Volavola, Lomani (Seniloli 61); Maafu (Mawi 58), Matavesi (Dolokoto 60), Saulo (Tawake 50), Cavubati (Tuisue 69), Nakarawa, Waqaniburotu (Capt.), Yato (Kunatani 64), Mata.