Ya dancer!
Further intelligent comment may or not be forthcoming, but to sum up:
Scotland were pretty good.
England were just awful
The last time we won at Twickenham I had not yet started primary school.
I watched the 1983 game on TV having attended the home games against Wales and Ireland, my first ever live sporting events. TV made a lot of the fact that Scotland had a new cap who was a 6’8" former Scotland basketball international, at a time when Scotland had its own basketball team. He was Tom Smith (a different player from the later Tom Smith), and he scored the decisive try from a lineout.
Because of that try, and the one that Jim Calder scored straight from a lineout the following year to win the Grand Slam (I was there, in the same camera frame), to this day my expectations are unrealistically high whenever we have a lineout within a few metres of the goal line.
It’s funny how these things get cemented. By contrast, at the 70min mark my WhatsApp was full of messages speculating about how are were going to throw it away.
That would largely be from remembering the 2019 game, when England started playing ferociously once they had nothing to lose. As it happens, I think Russell almost did throw it away with that charged down drop attempt at the end.
All we had to do in 2019 was a) cycle the ball through the forward for 3 mins or failing that b) not give up a penalty on the half way line. And yet… These hurts run deep.
Agreed, that charge down was exactly the point where I thought “Ah, that’s how we’re throwing it away this time.” But fair play, we did really well to retrieve it in short order.
Scotland certainly threw it away this time. But it doesn’t feel like previous heroic defeats which just showed the next opposition which weaknesses to exploit. We were much better than Wales throughout, we just didn’t take this particular match seriously enough after the seismic shift of last week. I think this team is learning how to cope with the pressure of success, in the way that Irish international and provincial teams had to around 15 years ago. We will go down narrowly to France in the next game while Ireland will get a meaningless big win against Italy. Scotland v Ireland will be a fantastic match, if we can both keep 15 players on the pitch.
Or I might be talking bollocks.
There was a lot of confidence on display. Not least in how we kept going for the try rather than the penalty. Which I basically like, but sometimes believing in yourself means taking the points because you know you’ll get another try scoring chance later.
But yeah, a different and arguably better way to lose.
I keep on making myself vulnerable, and I keep on getting hurt
Sorry Jeremy, I didn’t quite catch that - which team is “just above Italy”?
And here was I seeing the thread and thinking that someone had to have posted something about the France v Wales game - has there ever been a crazier 20 minutes in rugby?
Just unbelievable. Wales will rightly feel chagrined but at the same time, to get one player sin-binned in the last 10 minutes is unfortunate, to lose two…
In some ways - and this will be small consolation - at least Welsh supporters won’t be forever harangued with “Yeah, but you only won that grand slam thanks to red cards”.
France did really well to keep going - they have the possibiltiy of a championship win on Friday but IIRC they need a bonus point and a 21-point lead to make that happen and disappointing as Scotland have been they should be better than that.
Somehow missed this thread until now. Scotland are disappointed - how do you think England fans feel? All credit to Scotland for completely outplaying us in that first game. Our kicking and chasing in particular were poor (as well as the penalty count, which has continued to be an issue - reminds me of Johnson’s time as coach. Finally seemed to be sorted against France, and not terrible against Ireland - just outplayed, out of energy, out of ideas).
The story of Wales can I think be summed up by 2 comments I saw on Facebook - they only played against a full complement against Italy, and well done to the officials on their grand slam. Those first 2 Wales tries against England were (unusually for rugby) atrocious officiating, even Nigel Owens basically admitted as much. Without them, I think the last few minutes of that game (and potentially the rest of the championship) could have been different. But I recognise this is largely sour grapes and England have generally been poor this year.
Hope Italy can bounce back, they are clearly at a bit of a low in terms of some senior stars retiring that they haven’t managed to replace yet. It’s a shame they look further away from finishing in the top half of the table now than they did 20 years ago.
I agree there’s no way France should win by enough on Friday to win the championship, but also agree Wales didn’t ‘deserve’ a grand slam this time round. They should be happy with a championship, just as England were last year. Although obviously the manner in which they failed to win on Saturday was disappointing for them.
I thought Liam Williams would do well to keep a low profile for a bit - the first card was clearly coming (and the commentators were all about how Wales were being forced into infringing by the French pressure), but he didn’t have to slap the ball forward thirty seconds after his side went down a man.
But France were massive from the Rees-Zammit non-try and the first yellow card. They spent 15 minutes piling forward with 14 against 15 before the Welsh cracked.
When Italy joined in 2000 it was a breath of fresh air, beating the reigning champions (Scotland) in their very first game.
But they’ve lost every game since 2015, some 30 games in a row and most of them weren’t remotely close.
Time for a change. Either get some promotion/relegation structure or go back to the 5 Nations.
Overall, it was really just the second half against Wales and the first half against Ireland when Scotland were shit, and those are what cost us the championship.
I didn’t know you could even get penalised for a fend, let alone sent off - I don’t remember seeing it happen before.
At 80 mins, with the Wales and Ireland games very much top of mind, I had some very choice remarks on the tip of my tongue about lacking the discipline to win hard games, which I ecstatically swallowed down shortly after.
But yeah, a mental championship overall and a mental game to end it.