6N 2018: Wales v Scotland, 3 February

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WALES v SCOTLAND
3 February 2018
KO: 14:15 GMT
Principality Stadium, Cardiff

Live on [ITV, RTE, SC4, FR2, DMAX / BBC (H)]

Referee: Pascal Gaüzère (France)
Assistant 1: Romain Poite (France)
Assistant 2: Matthew Carley (England)
TMO: David Grashoff (England)

A. Head to Head

122 Played 122
70 Won 49
3 Drawn 3
49 Lost 70
1,624 Points 1,263

B. Recent Form

9 March 2013
Murrayfield, Edinburgh
18–28 to Wales

15 March 2014
Millennium Stadium, Cardiff
51–3 to Wales

15 February 2015
Murrayfield, Edinburgh
23–26 to Wales

13 February 2016
Millennium Stadium, Cardiff
27–23 to Wales

25 February 2017
Murrayfield, Edinburgh
29–13 to Scotland

C. Teams

WALES 

Leigh Halfpenny (Scarlets); Josh Adams (Worcester), Scott Williams (Scarlets), Hadleigh Parkes (Scarlets), Steff Evans (Scarlets); Rhys Patchell (Scarlets), Gareth Davies (Scarlets); Rob Evans (Scarlets), Ken Owens (Scarlets), Samson Lee (Scarlets), Cory Hill (Dragons), Alun Wyn Jones (Ospreys, capt), Aaron Shingler (Scarlets), Josh Navidi (Cardiff Blues), Ross Moriarty (Gloucester).

Replacements: Elliot Dee (Dragons), Wyn Jones (Scarlets), Tomas Francis (Exeter Chiefs), Bradley Davies (Ospreys), Justin Tipuric (Ospreys), Aled Davies (Scarlets), Gareth Anscombe (Cardiff Blues), Owen Watkin (Ospreys).

SCOTLAND

Stuart Hogg (Glasgow Warriors); Tommy Seymour (Glasgow Warriors), Chris Harris (Newcastle Falcons), Huw Jones (Glasgow Warriors), Byron McGuigan (Sale Sharks); Finn Russell (Glasgow Warriors), Ali Price (Glasgow Warriors); Gordon Reid (London Irish), Stuart McInally (Edinburgh), Jon Welsh (Newcastle Falcons), Ben Toolis (Edinburgh), Jonny Gray, John Barclay (Scarlets, captain), Hamish Watson (Edinburgh), Cornell du Preez (Edinburgh).

Replacements: Scott Lawson (Newcastle Falcons), Jamie Bhatti (Glasgow Warriors), Murray McCallum (Edinburgh), Grant Gilchrist (Edinburgh), Ryan Wilson (Glasgow Warriors), Greig Laidlaw (Clermont Auvergne), Pete Horne (Glasgow Warriors), Sean Maitland (Saracens).

Jaysus Inverdul and the BBC are against Wales. The first thing that Inverdul can focus on is one forward pass. Try and at least congratulate Wales first...

R!skysports wrote:Think we can all agree getting rid if cotter was a mistake. Townsend is a step backwards.

Then again, Cotter was in charge against England last year.

I feel for the Scottish fans, genuinely. Never expected that today from Wales. Thought it would be close.

Its the hope that kills you!

Firstly well done Wales, really very impressive.

Scotland, what were we trying to do?

I think we might have been guilty of believing our own hype, inexcusable.

It's the old adage, you got to earn the right to go wide. You can't just expect to chuck it about and win.

It could be important billy. And it's more against a poor decision by the tmo.

The Oracle wrote:I feel for the Scottish fans, genuinely. Never expected that today from Wales. Thought it would be close.

Likewise, I thought you’d narrowly beat us but wasn’t expecting a horsing like that. Top performance from Wales, well done to those guys who stepped up to replace the injuries, talk about taking your chance

I wonder, from a Scotland coaching perspective, if they were lulled into thinking Wales would be trying to make this a scrum orientated, forward battle in order to take advantage of the missing Scotland front rowers? Maybe Gats anticipated that too and decided to play the loose running game instead?

No 7&1/2 wrote:It could be important billy. And it's more against a poor decision by the tmo.

Not saying to not discuss it, absolutely but to have it mentioned as the very first comment by Inverdul after the game is just poor. He could have led with credit to Wales for the win and then focus on other points. In the end, it was pretty much the only contentious point in the match and there were many. To me, Inverdul has an unhealthy dislike for Wales as he is always trying to find ways to put them down. He is an extremely poor pundit.

Novice international coach gets schooled by experienced old head. Big lessons for Toonie from this, I hope he’s up to it

Not a pundit a presenter and he'll be led to a certain degree in what to ask. Silly name changes aside I think put of am eventual thrashing the key point is he bonus point for me.

TheMildlyFranticLlama wrote:

The Oracle wrote:I feel for the Scottish fans, genuinely. Never expected that today from Wales. Thought it would be close.

Likewise, I thought you’d narrowly beat us but wasn’t expecting a horsing like that. Top performance from Wales, well done to those guys who stepped up to replace the injuries, talk about taking your chance

Those injuries may have done Wales a favour, hard to see some of those players stepping out again!

TheMildlyFranticLlama wrote:Novice international coach gets schooled by experienced old head. Big lessons for Toonie from this, I hope he’s up to it

I suppose we will reserve judgement on Toonie as an international coach. If he did not know it before though, he knows it now. The 6N is a different ball game!

We are a better team than that though and I still think we will play some good rugby in this competition. We need to learn and quickly though!

The Oracle wrote:I wonder, from a Scotland coaching perspective, if they were lulled into thinking Wales would be trying to make this a scrum orientated, forward battle in order to take advantage of the missing Scotland front rowers? Maybe Gats anticipated that too and decided to play the loose running game instead?

Yeah it was a strange first half, way too loose and open. Almost two positives making a negative. I think the Welsh decisions to keep the ball in play worked really well for them. The Scotland side I saw play NZ in the Autumn were organised and looked after the ball in the right areas of the pitch. Finn Russell forced too many kicks and passes today and it fed into the Welsh confidence, we gifted Wales far too many opportunities. After 10 mins I thought Scotland were still the dominant team but they never pulled their heads in and organised their attack. Such a shame as this really should have been an opportunity to an away result early on.

Also, the Scottish defence for the 2nd try was insane. Two players on the open side and everyone else blind practically ???

There's some players that held their hands up certainly but give them a good run of ten games to see. A lot can change quickly in sport.

You could definitely see the confidence the Scarlets boys brought. Not afraid to try things. I think players like North, out of form and confidence, would perhaps hold back a bit or think twice about trying something and the then half chances are not created or taken.

Well...

Breakaway tries happen, but the way that Scotland went to pieces for 5 minutes afterwards was not a good sign at all. Well done Wales

No 7&1/2 wrote:Yes very poor tmo decision for the bonus point.

They should have had the other try though.

eirebilly wrote:Jaysus Inverdul and the BBC are against Wales. The first thing that Inverdul can focus on is one forward pass. Try and at least congratulate Wales first...

Billy, the rugby on the BBC is controlled by Wales, take a look at the way rugby results are shown on the BBC, anything lower than the Championship is ignored, but you will fins Welsh village colts games reported. Take a look at the panel makeup today, 2 Welsh, 1 scot and an Englishman. Inverdale is usually a Welsh sycophant, they cannot do anything wrong, so perhaps he has been listening to some of the criticisms.

The try was important now we have bonus points, should Wales win the championship by one point, you can imaging the comments about it being undeserving. Wales played a fantastic game and fully deserved the win, but if Wales win a close 6N,the game will be remembered, rightly or wrongly for that mistake that gave them the extra point and not for their skills and play.

Well done Wales - I predicted a Wales win but nothing like that margin ...

The Oracle wrote:You could definitely see the confidence the Scarlets boys brought. Not afraid to try things. I think players like North, out of form and confidence, would perhaps hold back a bit or think twice about trying something and the then half chances are not created or taken.

I take it you didn't see the Saints vs Quins game last night then Oracle. North put himself about quite a bit and looked very hungry.

Just today. Well done Wales. Fully deserved win

lostinwales wrote:Well...

Breakaway tries happen, but the way that Scotland went to pieces for 5 minutes afterwards was not a good sign at all. Well done Wales

Agreed, But at least we did steady the ship afterwards and should have gone into the half time with some points on the board. More worrying was the second half when we were never in the game and certainly not competitive and quickly let the game go completely away from us.

WELL-PAST-IT wrote:

The Oracle wrote:You could definitely see the confidence the Scarlets boys brought. Not afraid to try things. I think players like North, out of form and confidence, would perhaps hold back a bit or think twice about trying something and the then half chances are not created or taken.

I take it you didn't see the Saints vs Quins game last night then Oracle. North put himself about quite a bit and looked very hungry.

He will need to be if he wants back in that Wales team, both their wings were excellent.

WELL-PAST-IT wrote:

The Oracle wrote:You could definitely see the confidence the Scarlets boys brought. Not afraid to try things. I think players like North, out of form and confidence, would perhaps hold back a bit or think twice about trying something and the then half chances are not created or taken.

I take it you didn't see the Saints vs Quins game last night then Oracle. North put himself about quite a bit and looked very hungry.

He was perhaps a bad example to use. I used him as an example of players Gats likes to play regardless of form (in the past). Gats has his favourites and those that fit the plan, rather than those in form and then make a new plan around them. But the injuries forced his hand a little and the benefit of picking in form and confident guys showed.

Huge congratulations to Wales, and to all the Welsh supporters on here. Well done, lads.

Scotland? Well, we were bloody awful. Wales were good and, to be frank, they could have than they were and they'd still have won.

Today at 4:24 pm
by Scottrf
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No 7&1/2 wrote:

Yes very poor tmo decision for the bonus point.
———————————————————————————

They should have had the other try though.
———————————————————————————
Agree, it probably evened out in the end.
Well done Wales - what a start!
*Apologies for strange format - I haven’t worked out how to quote posts on an iPad

Wales were dominant, Scotland looked more like the team that capitulated to England last year.  Wales will be confident of rolling over Eng at Twickers now I reckon.  What happened to Bath of late could happen to England if they play like that and England don't front up.

Disagree from the question asked.

And i disagree that England will be worried after the wales performance. Time will tell though.

I don't think Wales have anywhere near enough to go to Twickers and get a result. Hope to push them close though.

It's hard to know, they looked good but Scotland were really poor. I think Wales could be very good this year though.

No 7&1/2 wrote:Disagree from the question asked.

So he asked the wrong question. Either way it was a try.

eirebilly wrote:

No 7&1/2 wrote:It could be important billy. And it's more against a poor decision by the tmo.

Not saying to not discuss it, absolutely but to have it mentioned as the very first comment by Inverdul after the game is just poor. He could have led with credit to Wales for the win and then focus on other points. In the end, it was pretty much the only contentious point in the match and there were many. To me, Inverdul has an unhealthy dislike for Wales as he is always trying to find ways to put them down. He is an extremely poor pundit.

Quite simply, England (presenters, fans, even the actual players sometimes) genuinely fear an in-form Wales, and rightly so. I'd take it as a slightly strange compliment, and if Wales are able to match England physically next week, we know the backs can cause any team havoc. In England's case, I don't think any team can ravage them quite like Wales do when they're in a rich streak, and whether that happens next week (I hope it does, as I alluded to before the game) then England have every right to be worried.

This game was less about countering each other/second-guessing, and just putting systems against each other. Two early scores were key as Scotland never recovered, but it was a great game. Don't think Scotland can be too down on themselves, thought you played well, constantly turning the Welsh defence with dinked kicks when the red wall didn't yield.

The problem, clearly, is that you're still a bit soft up front. You can't rely on trucking it up when it's slow, or when you want to go through mid-tempo/slow phases. Maybe you can do that, but you lost your heads chasing the game, but it wasn't in evidence today. Wales were superb - without getting ahead of themselves, the ruthless defence and ruthless counter attack is synonymous of the All Blacks. Don't think that the fact Wales were efficient in their attacking and scoring can be a criticism.

Hs has to ask the right question for what he saw scott.

Don't agree miaow that the england team would fear wales after that performance. There will surely be an acknowledgement that any team in the 6ns can do another over. There's little from the game today that will cause much concern.

Ireland look blooming good so far though.

No 7&1/2 wrote:Hs has to ask the right question for what he saw scott.

Imo you can see the ball hit the grass from one angle and he was over the line from the other.

Either way it's a bit much to complain about a try being wrongly awarded when they clearly scored another.

Scottrf wrote:

No 7&1/2 wrote:Hs has to ask the right question for what he saw scott.

Imo you can see the ball hit the grass from one angle and he was over the line from the other.

Either way it's a bit much to complain about a try being wrongly awarded when they clearly scored another.

Have to agree with this. Both decisions kind of cancelled themselves out. Wales were deserved TBP winners today.

I stopped watching the game when Halfpenny score his second try.

I expected a far better game from Scotland, but to be honest they was rubbish today.

Well done Wales certainly the better team today. 

Did not see the end of the game did Wales get a bonus point or not?

Don't think it is at all. From the first request I think the tmo was correct in what his decision was was. From the 2nd request he really should have looked at that pass.

They were correct to give an incorrect decision? He looked to touch it down, looked over the line. You give the benefit to the attacker. Then the TMO can see it's down and can see he's over the line. No try 'Correct.

From the question which was fair enough yes it was the correct decision. Unless you're calling for a change in the use of tmo which on itself is fair enough but doesn't affect this.

"We expected to win and win reasonably comfortably. The chief executive of the Welsh Rugby Union asked me yesterday how I thought we'd go and I said I thought we'd win by 20."

Stay classy Warren.

RDW_Scotland wrote:"We expected to win and win reasonably comfortably. The chief executive of the Welsh Rugby Union asked me yesterday how I thought we'd go and I said I thought we'd win by 20."

Stay classy Warren.

Not good Warren. Not good at all. I think he's probably lost his cool a bit there in response to being written off before the game.

BigGee wrote:Its the hope that kills you!

Firstly well done Wales, really very impressive.

Scotland, what were we trying to do?

I think we might have been guilty of believing our own hype, inexcusable.

It's the old adage, you got to earn the right to go wide. You can't just expect to chuck it about and win.

100%. I was about to write almost exactly the same post. Organised chaos is one thing, but at times we were playing suicidal rugby and Wales were far too organised for us. Townsend has lapped up a lot of praise over the last few years whilst Gatland has been characterised as a dinosaur, but it was a total victory for the old master today. One of the worst aspects of the Scotland performance was our complete failure to adapt to the match situation. Championship winning teams need to be able to read the game and change tactics. We were worryingly one dimensional with no plan B. The lineout shambles was another big problem for us. What on earth is the point in picking Scott Lawson if the lineout is still rubbish??

Wales should be very happy with their afternoon's work. We were completely outclassed.

Well done to Wales, but I find it very hard to judge their performance and form based on that game.

They closed down the Scottish attack well, but Scotland made it easy for them by going wide without fixing the defence. And they took their chances well, but it would have been criminal not to when Scotland handed them so much on a plate. Three of the tries came directly from easy interceptions.

Barring a complete meltdown in Rome tomorrow, we can be pretty confident that England won’t make it so easy, and Wales weren’t forced to play enough to give much indication of how they’d face a sterner test. By way of analogy, England’s thumping of Scotland last year didn’t guarantee a win over Ireland.

Poorfour wrote:Well done to Wales, but I find it very hard to judge their performance and form based on that game.

They closed down the Scottish attack well, but Scotland made it easy for them by going wide without fixing the defence. And they took their chances well, but it would have been criminal not to when Scotland handed them so much on a plate. Three of the tries came directly from easy interceptions.

Barring a complete meltdown in Rome tomorrow, we can be pretty confident that England won’t make it so easy, and Wales weren’t forced to play enough to give much indication of how they’d face a sterner test. By way of analogy, England’s thumping of Scotland last year didn’t guarantee a win over Ireland.

3 tries came directly from interceptions? Not they didn't! I've just finished watching the game again. Only the first try was from an interception. Try 2 was from a scrum. Try 3 was worked up to the try line and after a few phases was shipped on to 1/2p. Try 4 was a number of phases from a scrum.

Just to add, I agree that Wales won't find it easy at HQ. England will be far too strong imo.

Scottrf wrote:

No 7&1/2 wrote:Hs has to ask the right question for what he saw scott.

Imo you can see the ball hit the grass from one angle and he was over the line from the other.

Either way it's a bit much to complain about a try being wrongly awarded when they clearly scored another.

I thought Wyn Jones scored a try for sure but completely understood why they didn't give it. I didn't see if Steff Evans knocked it on in the replay and haven't re-watched any match highlights yet. Anyway I just wanted to say it looks like you're finally applying logic and common sense to what goes on on the rugby field, Scott. Today's result is why people like you and Hazel Spaling should refrain from posting obnoxious hyperbole in the build up to competitive matches, the main reasons being it's disrespectful and you end up looking stupid. BamBam appears to have lost his wifi password too?

Well done Wales, long way to go yet though.

The Oracle wrote:

RDW_Scotland wrote:"We expected to win and win reasonably comfortably. The chief executive of the Welsh Rugby Union asked me yesterday how I thought we'd go and I said I thought we'd win by 20."

Stay classy Warren.

Not good Warren. Not good at all. I think he's probably lost his cool a bit there in response to being written off before the game.

Not the first time he's lost his cool given how much unfair criticism he gets every year. Under Gatland Wales have never lost to Scotland so it's fair that he was confident in his own game plan. Agree to an extent it wasn't good for him to say it. He could have said "We were confident in our game plan and executed it well." His score predictions aren't bad however.

The Oracle wrote:

Poorfour wrote:Well done to Wales, but I find it very hard to judge their performance and form based on that game.

They closed down the Scottish attack well, but Scotland made it easy for them by going wide without fixing the defence. And they took their chances well, but it would have been criminal not to when Scotland handed them so much on a plate. Three of the tries came directly from easy interceptions.

Barring a complete meltdown in Rome tomorrow, we can be pretty confident that England won’t make it so easy, and Wales weren’t forced to play enough to give much indication of how they’d face a sterner test. By way of analogy, England’s thumping of Scotland last year didn’t guarantee a win over Ireland.

3 tries came directly from interceptions? Not they didn't! I've just finished watching the game again. Only the first try was from an interception. Try 2 was from a scrum. Try 3 was worked up to the try line and after a few phases was shipped on to 1/2p. Try 4 was a number of phases from a scrum.

I meant the field position came from interceptions. Should have been clearer.