Scotland 10 - 6 Ireland

First topic message reminder :

New kit, same old Scotland

So the team ran out with their shinny new Scotland kit, complete with optimistic gold (fools gold...)

and yet in the first half, so much promise, so much possession, so much
territory. And yet NO points on the board. No tries, not even a penalty.

3-0 down here's hoping we can turn it around...

.........................................................................................................................................................

It took 76 minutes, but finally Scotland scored a TRY
Great pass by Nick De Luca, to Joe Ansbro. Good turn of pace, stepped inside Trimble, to give Scotland the win.

A scrappy match. Good play by Cross, good in the scrum and supported well, better than most of our backs...Thought Rennie played well, some nice turnovers. Real credit to Ireland, but in the end we just managed to sneak it.
Lawson looked a little slow, Laidlaw injected pace nicely when he came on.

funnyExiledScot wrote:

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:I was monstrously disapointed with Scotland on Saturday. Our forwards had a good game but once again our backs did a sterling job of butchering every half decent chance we had.

Slightly harsh I think with the "monstrously disappointed". There was certainly some rustyness and unforced errors, but the fact is we created at least 4 clear cut scoring chances and although we messed them up, we did create the opportunities to score an additional 28 points. Small comfort perhaps, but we have effectively four more games to get the backs ready to take those chances.

It's not harsh mate, it's the truth and everyone who thought we would massacre that Irish Wolfhounds team knows it too.

The backs have been failing to take these chances for the last 6 years. Frankly I'm tired of hearing about rustiness and chances we had. Tuilagi, North, Haskell et al did not seem to have the same trouble in Twickenham on Saturday and they are hardly battle hardened from weeks of recent test match rugby.

I have spent a lot of money going to see Scotland in recent times and to be honest it just depresses me. I'm not expecting us to go out there and rip our rivals apart, however a 2nd/3rd choice Ireland side should have been easy prey for what could easily be argued as our 1st choice backline.

I never thought we'd massacre that Ireland team. My prediction was that we'd win by 10, which as it turns out wasn't a bad prediction. I expected us to win the forward contest, and we did. I thought they had the creative edge in the backs, but that we'd be physical enough in the backs to ensure we had good ball retention, also true. We certainly lost something when Walker went off though. Although he mucked up two chances, his running into the line had caused the Irish problems, and Cuthbert brought nothing on as a replacement.

4-5 years ago it wasn't that our backs weren't taking chances, rather that we weren't creating any. I agree, in the last couple of years it seems that progress has stalled, and players such as Lamont and Walker, whilst handy strike runners, have never been men of vision. I really hope Max Evans can be fit and firing, because we need his sharper running and stepping on the other wing, to ensure we're not just a backline of predictable straight runners. I also think CP needs to come into the line more, both as a runner and as a distributer. Another area to improve on in attack is half back. Lawson offered no attacking threat around the fringes, and Ireland were able to afford their back row players to move into the backline to help out the 10/12 channel. Rather than seeing that and have Lawson and Jackson redirect the threat to the ruck area or have forwards go through the middle, to keep the Irish guessing, we kept sending runners at the centres, which although made us some ground, it because predictable, and the likes of Leamy and McCarthy were there to negate the threat.

Lawson and Jackson needed to run some ball themselves, not as a myopic one out strategy, but as a means of variation. When we scored that late try, I think the Irish were genuinely surprised that we got the ball out wide so fast in a planned move. It would have been fair for them to expect Morrison to go smashing into Paddy Wallace yet again and for Scotland to go from there (slowly). As it happened, the ball went wide quickly, De Luca (who should start 13 in the next game) stepped quickly and went. McFadden was caught out by the speed of the move and the quality of Jackson's pass, De Luca went through, drew the winger and floated a great pass (possibly the best pass we've seen from a Scottish centre in some time) and Ansbro was away.

Against Italy, more variation is needed. Teams in international rugby will not be blown away by single players running in straight lines into contact, especially when the recycling rate is so slow, and when the occasional bust is made, supporting players are ignored in favour of contact. There is much to work on, but there were some positives.

I have often been panned for supporting NDL in the past by a lot of posters on this forum. My faith in him has always been maintained by his vision and sublime hands that he demonstrated in that try. I would be very tempted to have him at 13 for the next game.

However 13 is not the problem position. Scotland's woes lie inside with 9/10/12

Jackson in only his 4th starting cap was ok, Morrison although he carried well (he usually does) did absolutley nothing to unlock the Irish defence and herin lies the problem. Lawson also had a poor game by his standards and did little to keep the flankers on their toes.

My point is these are seasoned Test match veterans who should know to mix the game up a wee bit. Lamont too should have done more to try and keep the ball moving instead of getting bogged down in the contact.

The players who brought the most to the table in terms of flair and attacking vison were the rookies, Ansbro, NDL and Rennie

"Morrison although he carried well (he usually does) did absolutley nothing to unlock the Irish defence"

Apart from illegally taking out Paddy Wallace for the winning try you mean

Ok is about right for Jackson. He lost composure a couple of times and threw the wrong pass, and as I said above, he needed to run more himself to stop McCarthy and Leamy automatically getting in behind Wallace.

A bit harsh on Lamont. I thought he varied his running lines pretty well, and came into the line to good effect on several occasions. His weakness, and it's always been a weakness, is that he too often runs away from support, or ignores it. I suspect it'll always be a weakness with him, but at least he's an ambitious player that likes to run with ball in hand, rather than kick it away.

NDL may a very positive impression, and before the match was praised by Robinson for being in good nick. I'd like him to play at 13 in the Italy game, with Danielli and Evans on the wings. Those guys should all go to the WC and they need the game time, and if NDL plays well, he could well oust Ansbro from the 13 jersey either onto the bench, or onto the wing.

Guys tell me this are you a bit concerned at how difficult Scotland found it to break Ireland down with so much posession?

It seemed Scotland just had one plan, which was to bash through the Irish centres and when that didn't work there didn't seem to be a plan B. I mean lets face it, if it wasn't for a late defensive lapse, Scotland would probably have lost. Certainly you wouldn't have got a try. I think that is pretty worrying.

There were a few good line breaks but they seem to be mainly down to individual efforts from the likes of Lamont, rather than anything Scotland
are creating.

That Irish pack too was there for the taking too but Scotland didn't really get the dominance I was expecting.

I want to see Scotland do well in the WC but I'd be pretty concerned about how they'll fair against England and Argentina based on that performance. What do you think?

Absolutely agree - no-one is trying to sugar coat this. We created chances, although not as many as I'd like, and failed to take them all bar one. That's a poor conversion rate and as much as I'd like to put it solely down to rustiness, frankly much of it had to do with the limitations of our players.

I don't think our performance was the end of the world though, several players played well individually (Cross, Gray, Strokosch, Rennie and Lamont) and showed some form, and in the last 5 minutes we showed some composure both to score the try, but also to close out the game.

Yes, I'd have liked us to finish off at least two of the four missed try opportunities, and I'd have liked the line-out to work better, but I saw enough to suggest we have a chance against England and Argentina. Max Evans coming back will make a difference to the backs, and decent enough though Jim Hamilton was, Hines or Kellock along with Gray is a better unit. Added to which, we won't be throwing on the big guns of Hall, Dickinson and Denton against the top sides hopefully.

Much to work on.

roddersm wrote:Guys tell me this are you a bit concerned at how difficult Scotland found it to break Ireland down with so much posession?

It seemed Scotland just had one plan, which was to bash through the Irish centres and when that didn't work there didn't seem to be a plan B. I mean lets face it, if it wasn't for a late defensive lapse, Scotland would probably have lost. Certainly you wouldn't have got a try. I think that is pretty worrying.

There were a few good line breaks but they seem to be mainly down to individual efforts from the likes of Lamont, rather than anything Scotland
are creating.

That Irish pack too was there for the taking too but Scotland didn't really get the dominance I was expecting.

I want to see Scotland do well in the WC but I'd be pretty concerned about how they'll fair against England and Argentina based on that performance. What do you think?

It does not concern me, it scares me. We really should have been making a much better show of ourselves on Saturday. The conditions were not Ideal but I really expected Scotland to open up Ireland far more effectivly than we did.

Scotland's lack of cutting edge can be closely linked to how well Ireland ruin opposition ball with all the skullduggery at their desposal, they did this very well against England in the 6N and did it very well against us on Saturday. As A result our try came from a 1st phase set piece move that never gave the Irish backs a chance to re-align and catch up with the game.

All being said Scotland had the position and men to have scored 3-4 tries in that game but sloppy handling, lack of vision and poor support play was to blame, and to be honest I don't know if it's something regular coaching can help.

Thanks guys. I don't want to put a negative slant on things but I really would have expected Scotland to do a lot better against a pretty makeshift Irish side at home. A win is a win though and it's something to build on but Scotland will have to improve quick because they only have one more game.

It seems Scotland have plenty of strike threat in the outside backs but there really is a lack of creativity from 8-12. Maybe Robinson is too focused on the physical stuff at times. Some of the offloading was good from the forwards though. It just seems the running lines, vision and awareness of space seems to be missing in alot of the backs.

I don't think you can blame Irish breakdown tactics either radge, I mean no side in the world is going to give you quick ball certinly not Argentina!

Good luck anyways

Argentina are not as good at it as you lot at Skullduggery Rodders!

I'm not using it as an excuse, its a facet of Irelands game that makes you pretty hard to breakdown. When looking at the tries you leaked in the 6N very few of them came from 2nd or 3rd phase ball.

That shocker against Wales came from a lineout, the one against France came from Rougerie turning Darcy into a speed bump and the one against Italy was well worked and stretched the defence, your counter rucking is strong aspect of your game, don't be modest Rodders

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:Argentina are not as good at it as you lot at Skullduggery Rodders!

your counter rucking is strong aspect of your game, don't be modest Rodders

Radge if there's two areas in which the Irish excel, it's modesty and Skullduggery