Scotland – well done, but…

Ok finally managed to watch the final game in the series and delighted that we have won 3 out of 3 – that is a great achievement and I am not wanting to take that away from the boys.

However I am still very concerned about a number of key areas, that we still have not addressed and have been the down fall from quite a few years. Everyone is saying we may have turned a corner, but I am not so convinced

Front row – while we held our own, we did not destroy any of the scrums in any of the tests – in fact, in the Samoa game we looked under pressure. This is against 3 supposed weak scrumming sides and I really do worry that when we play against a strong scrumming side we will see what we saw in the 6 nations, our scrum falling apart – E Murray was ok, but that is about it

Line out – we were poor – again against less structured sides – this used to be a strength, but over the last 12 months it has become a weakness – what has happened?

With these two I feel when we hit the 6 nations, or SA or NZ, we will be unable to create a platform and it will be a long old day.

White line fever – no change there. Again bashing away in the Samoa 22 but could not find a way through. In fact looked clueless – no real improvement for me – even with the new boys

Handling – still dropping balls, throwing silly passes and generally losing the ball under little or no pressure

Re-starts – move along, nothing good to see here

We were quite lucky to win against Samoa (foot in touch the break we got) and never looked comfortable in the game

I will need to see vast improvements in the AI and 6 nations before I think we have turned a corner, but at the moment I am not convinced.

Confidence – lets hope however, that this is the turning point for confidence and we can build from here – as I said, am happy with 3 from 3, just not happy with the performances

(I also realise that I may be unpopular with this post, but I dream of a Scotland team that I KNOW are going to win matches, but at the moment I am very far away from that)

When I read the title of the post I thought hang on. But now that I've read the whole thing, nothing wrong with identifying areas to work on.

If Scotland is to improve back home they need to identify not only what they did right but also areas on which they need to work.

The nightmare I have is that our backs defensively are frail, Hogg, Visser, Scott, and Laidlaw need to put in the hours on their awareness at international level. It was quite evident in the 3rd test particularly

Did we not draw the match winning Penalty from the Ozzies in the Scrum and win a penalty try against Fiji

Doom mongering is all well and good but doom mongering with innacurate information is another Fly Half....

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:Did we not draw the match winning Penalty from the Ozzies in the Scrum and win a penalty try against Fiji

Doom mongering is all well and good but doom mongering with innacurate information is another Fly Half....

And if I recall, we also were under a lot of pressure against the Oz in many of the scrums and imo was down to how the ref decided on the day (although I may be mistaken)

Agreed, that Fiji it did perform well - so sit corrected

I agree wit your other points, although the Ozzie game's line out is difficult to judge since it was played in what looked like a hurricane.

White line fever is worrying but it's encouraging to see us score tries. Hammering away at the line is sometimes counter productive. The Ozzies hammered away at our line and equally found no way through but seemed to have no problems scoring against Wales.

There are counter arguments to alot of you points mate but there are certainly plenty of true points in your OP.

I'm always a glass half full kind of guy.... you seem to be the opposite.

I'm under no illusions though, this team is really green in the test arena and I reckon it'll be a couple of years before we see the best out of Gray, Scott, Hogg, Jones, Visser, Grant and Welsh so we have a long way to go.

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:I'm always a glass half full kind of guy.... you seem to be the opposite.

I usually am a half glass full, but think I have been worn down with the number of false dawns - I also am very careful not to sound like certain other nations after a win (i.e. we are the worlds best because etc etc)

Roll on the AI and the 6 nations, so my glass can runuth over with positive rugby vibes

I'm not overjoyed by the results, they are wins though and I'll take that as long as it gives the lads in blue some confidence, then anything is positive.

If you consider the fact we played very mediocre rugby and still managed to win, I'd be quite happy with what we've managed to achieve. The sign of a good team is one that can close games off regardless of how badly they're playing. Just look at when New Zealand almost casually beat Ireland in the second test. Same with South Africa and England, South Africa beating England and England beating us at the beginning of the Six Nations.

I do hope though that these current issues are addressed and Scotland become a more polished product. Jamie Farndale is looking exciting, as is Leonard, I hope these guys get the time to shine next season in the Rabo.

Far from complete but I'm hoping we can keep New Zealand within 10 points (that'd be really nice) and beat South Africa. Also IF we beat South Africa we'd better beat Tonga, otherwise it'll be back to square one all over again. Consistency now is key, and if we're winning, who cares how we do it! Quality comes with confidence, and Scotland need as much as they can get!

I think if we can take the 'win the close ones' rather than 'lose the close ones' then it will be a real step in the right direction

Riskysports wrote:I think if we can take the 'win the close ones' rather than 'lose the close ones' then it will be a real step in the right direction

+1

depressing thing is if we'd done that about 6 months ago we could've been looking at a potential 6Ns 3rd or 2nd finish!

NeilyBroon wrote:depressing thing is if we'd done that about 6 months ago we could've been looking at a potential 6Ns 3rd or 2nd finish!

[strike]

Maybe we should actually join the 4 nations in the SH - we seem to be better with their seasons :-)

NeilyBroon wrote:depressing thing is if we'd done that about 6 months ago we could've been looking at a potential 6Ns 3rd or 2nd finish!

This may sound odd as an England fan, but i am hoping that Scotland can build on this tour.

Why? For ye olde 'it's good for the game' arguement mainly. I always want my national team to win six nations, but the clue is in the name - 6 nations, not 4 + 2 nations. For the last few years Scotland and Italy have been fighting off the wooden spoon. This really is not good for anyone that partakes in the long run.

AlastairW wrote:

NeilyBroon wrote:depressing thing is if we'd done that about 6 months ago we could've been looking at a potential 6Ns 3rd or 2nd finish!

This may sound odd as an England fan, but i am hoping that Scotland can build on this tour.

Why? For ye olde 'it's good for the game' arguement mainly. I always want my national team to win six nations, but the clue is in the name - 6 nations, not 4 + 2 nations. For the last few years Scotland and Italy have been fighting off the wooden spoon. This really is not good for anyone that partakes in the long run.

+1
Couldn't agree more, my hopes every year are risen only to be crushed come 6N time!

NeilyBroon wrote:
+1
Couldn't agree more, my hopes every year are risen only to be crushed come 6N time!

I'm deseinsitized to that one now.

haha I was for a while until last year when I did actually think we legitimately stood a reasonable chance!

The worst one for me was the Wales game 2011, after a really good game in Paris we welcomed the Welsh to Murrayfield with our tails up.

80 minutes later when Parks had squandered dozens of overlaps and kicked possesion aimlessly away to a 13 man Welsh side "Should'a' known better" was echoing through my mind.

I really like this board, its full of Scotland fans who (like me) get our hopes up after a meaningless* set of friendly wins and become convinced that we are going to do really well in the 6 nations and then when we get humped we start the process all over again. Its nice to be amongst people with the same thought process.

* by meaningless I meant in terms of its not a tournament like the RWC or the 6 nations.