Scotland Player Ratings

Now apologies I didn't see the whole match in full stream, missed out 20 second chunks here and there thanks to being nowhere near Scotland. And I can imagine many people have different opinions to me but I want to hear them!

Taking into account we were playing unequivocally the best team in the world (ie these ratings are considering we are Scotland)...

Hogg - 6 - Some good hoofs from the back there, but never really given much ball time and when he was got closed down very easily. Surprised not to see more class. Did he miss many tackles? I couldn't tell.

Lamont - 6 - Overshadowed by Visser to be honest. Was caught far too narrow on Savea's 2nd try. Was giving his all, just not much chance to come into the game.

De Luca - 7 - Made a couple of good breaks, one howler of a knock on though, but seemed to do his shift in defence quite well.

Scott - 8 - Good intercept set up, didn't see him miss a tackle although I may be wrong. Was present in attack. Good performance

Visser - 8 - Boy needs to work on his defense but I am giving him an 8 because for all that our backline has tried in over 10 years now, we've never had a winger that just happens to be in the right place and score tries against the ABs.

Laidlaw - 6 - Far too brittle in defence, but did some good things in attack. Strangely his best move was from defense to create the third try. Interesting to see, at least from my perspective, was not the hinge of the attacking line for this match.

Blair - 9 - Did everything right from what I could see. Our best backline player's in a 2nd division league!

Grant - 7 - Good in the loose and seemed to be holding up the scrum well.

Ford - 4 - You can't blame him for every line out lost, but you can say that he was not helping whatsoever. Only okay in loose. Displayed little leadership quality despite recently being captain, and for a mobile hooker was beaten upteen times in defense. Not acceptable even against the ABs.

Cross - 6 - Good try, good loose but downsides is still needs to work on his scrummaging and defensively had a couple of hiccoughs

Gray - 9 - Monster in the line out. Ever present in attacking play. Always making yards. Made some fantastic tackles too. Thank god he was in our line up.

Hamilton - 7 - Put in his shift like the workhorse he is ... but where was the challenge at the breakdown that he's so known for?

Strokosch - 7 - Same as Hamilton really.

Rennie - 2 - Just seemed to make mistakes before going off. Didn't have any time to make amends though - shame. We really missed his breakdown challenging.

Brown (C) - 7 - Considering he was at 8 I thought he did very well. First game as captain and he looks like he'll develop to be a good one. A good enough start from Kelly.


Lawson(65) - 5 - Good work as far as I could see but giving away dumb penalties again. Even with fresh legs.
Jacobsen(67) - 5 - Didn't see much of him
Kellock(58) - 7 - A fantastic replacement to have really
Denton(19) - 8 - Performed very well (out of position? was he playing at 7?) Not a 7 but we really enjoyed having him on the field
Pyrgos(75) - 4 - Didn't do much and things slowed down as soon as the replacement was made.
Jackson(67) - 6 - A couple of ok runs, did nothing wrong but nothing hugely right either.
Evans(65) - 4 - Injected some pace but was typical in his 'go it alone and lose in contact' strategy...

Traynor - Not used.

Denton played at no8 with Kelly B slotting in on the opensidr

Would take one of all the forwards and 2 off all the backs - as think they are far too high

Special mentions to

Ford - 2 - ok, in scrum, missed tackles - throw terribly (in some key positions on the pitch) and did little in the loose - needs to be dropped

De luca - 5 - massive knock on and in wrong prositions too often

Clearly there are a lot of positives to be taken out of the game for the Scots, however, it was still a 30 point loss at home so those ratings seem very generous especially in the backs.

I guess I'm being relative i.e. based on 'where is laidlaw given what would be a 0 for laidlaw, what would be a 10 for laidlaw' et cetera. Laidlaw's 10 would still get schooled by a Carter 10.

I find it difficult to be global because it would make most Scotland's ratings a 3-5, but maybe I should be