Wales v Scotland 6N Super Saturday 31st Oct 2020

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Wales v Scotland

6 Nations Championship
Saturday 31st Oct
Parc y Scarlets

KO 14.15


Well Wales and Scotland kick off Super saturday, only 7 months late, but a game we are all happy to see being played at long last.

Scotland started the new session of internationals in much the same vein as they finnished, albeit was against Georgia, who were even more rusty than the rest of the teams and did not put up a great opposition.

Wales, by their own high standards, did not have a great tournament so far, the transition from Gatland to Pivac was always going to be a little tricky and so it has proved. They came up against a French side who were up for it at home and got comfortably beaten last week, for whatever reason, they just don't seem to have quite clicked yet.

One thing is for sure though, they will not relish the prospect of being beaten by Scotland at home, it is a long time since that has happened! They will also be battle hardened by the game last weekend and you can only expect them to improve.

So are Scotland feeling confident?

Well they do seem to be playing to a decent standard atm, but we have been there before and left the principality with our trails trailing between our legs on many occasions. It is and always will be a very hard place to come and win a game.

It will be odd playing in an empty stadium though and you wonder how it might effect both teams. Wales are used to having that very passionate crowd behind them playing at home and no doubt it has helped get them accross the line on more than one occasion.

Scotland have to feel that they have a good chance here, but also have to manage that pressure, something that they have not been very good at in recent times.

It should be a cracking game.

I am hoping for a Scotland team along these lines:

1. Sutherland
2. Brown
3. Fagerson Z
4. Cummings
5. Gray J
6. Ritchie
7. Watson
8. Haining
9. Price
10. Russell
11. VDM
12. Johnson
13. Harris
14. Graham
15. Hogg - Capt

Subs:

Keeble
McInally
Berghan
Toolis
Cowan
Horne G
Hastings
Jones H

Congrats to Scotland on the win. It was a very hard game in very difficult conditions.

Scotland have a very solid pack that can go, and has gone, toe to toe with some of the best packs in the world. Once you have that sort of platform to work on, victories do tend to follow.

king_carlos wrote:

mikey_dragon wrote:Thought James Davies and Ryan Elias were crap in this game. And the selection of Dillon Lewis turned out to be a disastrous one as per. I don’t think Tipuric coming back in is the answer either.

Navidi is a big loss for a side under pressure. He's just consistently strong in every part of his game. I really hope he can return from concussion soon.

The tight five feels like the issue though. Elias as you say struggled, loosehead remains an issue and the Welsh locks didn't have great games. I thought Rowlands looked off the pace and AWJ won't go on forever.

There are some exciting players in the backs. Watkins, Tompkins, Williams and Halaholo are good centres. LZR is a huge talent. As you allude to in your post about JDv2 it's difficult for young players to shine if senior players are struggling. Webb/Davies/Tomos Williams, Biggar, JDv2, Liam Williams, Adams, Halfpenny and North. There is plenty of experience to ease the younger backs in but they need to be performing.

I agree. I liked your comment. Not sure why it was disliked... well actually I am certain why and by who, how silly. It's not looking good after Dragons fans were basically told Dee is rubbish and Elias is amazeballs.... We're missing Owens for sure, and I know he is getting on but you wouldn't be able to tell.

Navidi is brilliant at everything he does tbh, probably Wales' must underrated player for years - but perhaps no more? Tipuric is certainly our most overrated flanker. Carre did alright I thought - the guy is still learning and he wasn't helped. Our pack just didn't perform well enough and the conditions certainly didn't help. Some of our guys didn't seem that interested.

Good backs here and there, but we need to unearth a new midfield combo and give a fly-half that isn't Dan Biggar a run of games.

jimbopip wrote:I've lifted this from the Glasgow Warriors Forum. It might put Wales' losses under Pivac into a different light.

A note from last week’s WRU AGM,
Wales approach with the Intertnational team was reviewed following the 2019 WC with inputs from Pivac and Gatland. It was decided that the confrontational/attritional approach used in the Gatland years, whilst proving to be effective, also leads to high injury rates. It was determined that whilst effective in the 6 Nations and Autumn games, it was unlikely produce a WC win due to the longer number of matches involved and the higher attrition rate.
Pivac therefore agreed to devise alternative strategies for the game that are intended to produce the results but with lower injury counts. Martin Phillips noted the criticism of Wales performances in recent matches but stressed that we need to give Pivac time to perfect the new style of playing, stressing that brave decisions are needed to build a Wales team to win a WC.

That's interesting. You have to admit that sort of rugby was very effective, especially when it came to playing SA and France, and seemingly Scotland! It would explain our injury record. You see SA playing like this all the time and not picking up that many injuries. Pro teams should be able to revert back to type if trying a different style though.
I would agree with giving Pivac more time, he's got 2 years in total. Our pack looks the worst out of all the 5 Nations so it's an uphill struggle.

mikey_dragon wrote:

jimbopip wrote:I've lifted this from the Glasgow Warriors Forum. It might put Wales' losses under Pivac into a different light.

A note from last week’s WRU AGM,
Wales approach with the Intertnational team was reviewed following the 2019 WC with inputs from Pivac and Gatland. It was decided that the confrontational/attritional approach used in the Gatland years, whilst proving to be effective, also leads to high injury rates. It was determined that whilst effective in the 6 Nations and Autumn games, it was unlikely produce a WC win due to the longer number of matches involved and the higher attrition rate.
Pivac therefore agreed to devise alternative strategies for the game that are intended to produce the results but with lower injury counts. Martin Phillips noted the criticism of Wales performances in recent matches but stressed that we need to give Pivac time to perfect the new style of playing, stressing that brave decisions are needed to build a Wales team to win a WC.

That's interesting. You have to admit that sort of rugby was very effective, especially when it came to playing SA and France, and seemingly Scotland! It would explain our injury record. You see SA playing like this all the time and not picking up that many injuries. Pro teams should be able to revert back to type if trying a different style though.
I would agree with giving Pivac more time, he's got 2 years in total. Our pack looks the worst out of all the 5 Nations so it's an uphill struggle.

I think it's also to do with numbers though Mikey. SA has, last I checked, 4x the number of registered male rugby players compared to Wales. This means that if a SA player is injured, there's a higher chance that SA can find a replacement player of a similar quality.

The other side of it is that with more playing numbers, the more chance they have of finding a squad of impressively hard nutters that don't get injured that often.

AWJ didn’t get to a record number of caps just by being good, he's also just tough and rarely gets injured. SA have a higher chance of unearthing such a player.