Gregor’s petty and vindictive gesture blew up in his face
As the dust settles on the autumn internationals, there is an opportunity to look back and consider what lessons have been learned from this particular campaign.
The first, and most-obvious, thing to point out is that Finn Russell is Scotland’s best flyhalf – by some distance.
His absence from the squad that Gregor Townsend announced before a ball was kicked now looks like a rather petty and vindictive gesture, which has blown up in the coach’s face.
A firm fans’ favourite, Russell should have cemented his place in the team for the coming year.
Secondly, it would appear that Stuart Hogg’s form appears to be better without the burden of captaincy.
The full-back performed well alongside his two wingers, both of whom caused defences real and very different problems.
Duhan van der Merwe looked to get much more involved in the game, rather than waiting for it to come to him, and Darcy Graham demonstrated that size doesn’t always matter, when you have pace, a great sidestep and raw strength at your disposal.
Scotland are beginning to have an embarrassment of riches in the centre.
Sione Tuipuloto had an excellent series of matches, while Chris Harris has turned into Mr Consistent.
With Cameron Redpath back to full fitness, and Mark Bennett waiting in the wings, Scotland have real depth in the midfield, and finding the right combinations could be the coach’s biggest headache.
There is also a sense that Townsend may have his favourites.
Ali Price is coming under some pressure both from Ben White and George Horne at Glasgow, and Hamish Watson has yet to find the form that earned him a place on the most-recent Lions tour.
Yet Townsend seems to find it hard to look beyond both players – and when Watson was injured, the Scottish back row functioned well.
The coach would have done well to put some of these favourites under selection pressure to see if it would bring the best out of them.
The greatest learning has to be that Scotland need to find consistency in their performances. It is no good just raising their game for the big match, or the opponents who are the toughest to face. The team has to bring a consistency to the way they play, and put every team under pressure from the first minute to the last.
Sitting on a lead, as they tried to do against the All Blacks, or starting slowly, as happened against Fiji, is not going to serve them well, so the standards have to be raised.
Two wins out of four will be a disappointment, especially given the closeness of the matches that were lost.
Learning to develop a ruthless streak has to be the most-poignant lesson of all.