The Official Scottish Rugby Thread

[Tichtheid]

Wales have a guy called Blair Murray in their squad, I mean, that’s just shameless poaching.

From Scotland and NZ

The Scottish lad looks decent

[Yr Alban]

Wales have a guy called Blair Murray in their squad, I mean, that’s just shameless poaching.

Not as bad as Fraser Dingwall or Ruairidh McConnochie (though granted the latter did come back to the fold eventually)

[dpedin]

Wales looking awful as usual!

[Blackmac]

Oh well, up to us to save the home nation's blushes.

[Yr Alban]

Wales looking awful as usual!

I’m assuming that was a full strength Fiji team, as opposed to the one we beat last week?

[Yr Alban]

Oh well, up to us to save the home nation's blushes.

Eek.

[SaintK]

Wales looking awful as usual!

I’m assuming that was a full strength Fiji team, as opposed to the one we beat last week?

Yep
Great result with only 14 on the pitch for a lot of the match

[dpedin]

Wales looking awful as usual!

I’m assuming that was a full strength Fiji team, as opposed to the one we beat last week?

Yep
Great result with only 14 on the pitch for a lot of the match

Strong Giji and clueless Wales as normal!

[KingBlairhorn]

That wasn’t even a penalty. There was no crock roll and both Scotland players hit the ruck straight on. I don’t understand that at all.

[Blackmac]

That's absolute nonsense. No croc roll and doesn't come down on his leg.

[KingBlairhorn]

So Tuipulotu needs to be all over every ruck now. Anything slightly shady needs highlighted because there are numerous ruck interventions like that every match.

[KingBlairhorn]

This ref is reaming us so hard

[JM2K6]

Centre for the Lions will be interesting one. I would go with the Irish and Scottish pairings - Aki, Ringrose, Tupilotu and Jones - with perhaps Lawerence battling with Henshaw fighting to be in there as well. The English and Welsh midfield choices have been pretty awful and pretty limited in what they do.

I reckon Lawrence and Slade played themselves out of Lions contention today, both played somewhere between shite and shite with bells on! A lot of other English players must also be shitting themselves after today's display.

Lawrence did okay, and he's made a lot of tackles in two matches so far. Yesterday he made a lot of metres in traffic and broke a lot of tackles, and you know how much coaches love that shit in a beefy centre.

Slade on the other hand should be nowhere near a Lions discussion.

[Blackmac]

Jesus we have been screwed by this Christophe prick. Totally refused to ref SA at the breakdown yet nit picked us off the park. Add in some incredibly bad decisions that all went their way.

[Yr Alban]

That wasn’t even a penalty. There was no crock roll and both Scotland players hit the ruck straight on. I don’t understand that at all.

I watched the incident (all I’ve seen of the game so far) and I have to agree. And was the YC (upgraded) given for a croc roll, or for landing on the leg, neither of which appeared to happen?

[Yr Alban]

Is there anything that sums up Scottish rugby more than leaking a try right at the death to put a gloss on the result for the visiting team?

[JM2K6]

That wasn’t even a penalty. There was no crock roll and both Scotland players hit the ruck straight on. I don’t understand that at all.

I watched the incident (all I’ve seen of the game so far) and I have to agree. And was the YC (upgraded) given for a croc roll, or for landing on the leg, neither of which appeared to happen?

He definitely lands on the leg for what it's worth. But it seems almost entirely accidental and heavily impacted by the offside SA player blocking the gate

[Blackmac]

That wasn’t even a penalty. There was no crock roll and both Scotland players hit the ruck straight on. I don’t understand that at all.

I watched the incident (all I’ve seen of the game so far) and I have to agree. And was the YC (upgraded) given for a croc roll, or for landing on the leg, neither of which appeared to happen?

He definitely lands on the leg for what it's worth. But it seems almost entirely accidental and heavily impacted by the offside SA player blocking the gate

That law is specifically designed to stop players being rolled back and their legs getting caught under their weight. This clearly wasn't the case here though which makes it totally baffling.

[C T]

Don't want to be too much of a sour looser but genuinely felt almost all 50/50s went the way of SA today.

I'll need to have a proper look at that red card again, otherwise I don't know the rules anymore.

All in all sat here feeling pretty good, we were competitive which is all I wanted from this one. Could have done without the scoreline looking like that mind.

People will say SA were shite, but Scotland need to take some of the credit for that.

[KingBlairhorn]

Despite things not going our way throughout the match we were in it for 70-75 minutes. Understandably the boys were gassed at the end having played a quarter a man down. For me that’s progress. SA are the best team in the world and one we have majorly struggled against for the last two World Cup cycles. We looked like we deserved to share the pitch with them today. All in, not too upset by losing to the better team, despite my saltiness at some of the refereeing.

[Tichtheid]

Don't want to be too much of a sour looser but genuinely felt almost all 50/50s went the way of SA today.

I'll need to have a proper look at that red card again, otherwise I don't know the rules anymore.

All in all sat here feeling pretty good, we were competitive which is all I wanted from this one. Could have done without the scoreline looking like that mind.

People will say SA were shite, but Scotland need to take some of the credit for that.

Ditto

That's pretty much my feelings on all counts

[SomersetJock]

Absolutely baffled by the red card decision. I thought I knew what a croc role was, but obviously not.

The scrum awarded for White taking too long at the ruck stinks of a ref making one token gesture on an element of the game they have been encouraged to enforce. Shocking how the SA Scrummy wasn’t penalised for some of his which were way longer.

Positives -

The forward pack fronted up very well and the reaction when the SA replacement pack came on was brilliant.

Tom Jordan was excellent once again.

Zander really has become the player we all hoped he would be.

Negatives - Why is it always when we are in the red zone and have the ascendancy that we really screw up a lineout move. Happens far too often !

Huw Jones had a couple of passes to Duhan which were unnecessarily horrendous. Both cost us valuable possession at critical times !

We really are very good at screwing up at the absolute worst moments in a match !


Definitely feel more despondent at the final score than I do with the result !

[Big D]

A lot to like about that performance and some of the usual frustrations.

The starting forwards went mostly well outside the scrum. Ashman had his best performance for Scotland, old and Gilchrist got throw a power of work. Williamson went well too. Centres looked great at times. Jordan looks at home too.

We need to take more of the chances we make.

I'd also say if we are going 6/2 v SA it's pointless having two backrowers on the bench. Needs a 2nd row/back row option. A fresh back rower is bugger all use in that sort of contest.

[Blackmac]

A lot to like about that performance and some of the usual frustrations.

The starting forwards went mostly well outside the scrum. Ashman had his best performance for Scotland, old and Gilchrist got throw a power of work. Williamson went well too. Centres looked great at times. Jordan looks at home too.

We need to take more of the chances we make.

I'd also say if we are going 6/2 v SA it's pointless having two backrowers on the bench. Needs a 2nd row/back row option. A fresh back rower is bugger all use in that sort of contest.

The sort of game Christie would have enjoyed.

[Yr Alban]

As per previous posts, haven’t seen the game, so I could be dead wrong about this. However, the problem we have had over the last few years has been that sides like SA and Ireland just overpower us. We know we’re going to lose before the game starts. The impression I get is that that didn’t happen today. We didn’t fold despite being a man down for 20 minutes, we didn’t fold when SA brought on their bomb squad, and we were well in the game until deep in the second half.

Clearly we couldn’t finish off an attack today, and we let in four tries, but if this is the first sign that we’ve figured out how to be competitive in these games, I’ll take the result on the chin.

[Slick]

Was at the game so a bit difficult to assess too much.

The pack did an incredible job and largely out physicalled SA. Gives me a lot of hope for the 6N, if we can be that physical we can front up to Ireland and France.

The backs were a mixed bag really. Not sure why we started the game defending so narrowly when it’s not something we usually do and they got a lot of ground and a try from that. We got absolutely hammered in the aerial game, in fact possibly where we lost it. In saying that, 8 line breaks against SA is unheard of and on another day we would have finished some of them off. I’ll be more than happy to be guided by those that watched on TV but it felt that Jordan at 15 and Kinghorn at 14 didn’t really work - not blaming them for anything, just didn’t feel right.

On the red, every single Saffer around me was just as baffled as the rest of us, utterly bizarre call. It took an age for it to actually register that he had been sent off because no one was expecting it. Not sure how much you saw on TV but Cummings was also completely baffled, he didn’t think they meant him and tried to speak with the TJ to make sure they had got the right man, then had a chat with the 4th official - not moaning just couldn’t believe it was him.

On another note, I spoke to a load of Saffers today and every single one brought up Jones being the best centre in the world at the moment, unprompted. He’s so underrated in Europe.

[Biffer]

Nobody else pointing out it was Darge that did the alleged croc roll and Cummings that got the yellow, and the upgrade on replay?

[KingBlairhorn]

Nobody else pointing out it was Darge that did the alleged croc roll and Cummings that got the yellow, and the upgrade on replay?

Mostly because neither did a croc roll and nobody is quite sure why the card was issued. It was Cummings who fell on the lower limb of the Saffa so presumably that's why he got the card.

Is he now suspended for next week(s)?

[Big D]

Nobody else pointing out it was Darge that did the alleged croc roll and Cummings that got the yellow, and the upgrade on replay?

Mostly because neither did a croc roll and nobody is quite sure why the card was issued. It was Cummings who fell on the lower limb of the Saffa so presumably that's why he got the card.

Is he now suspended for next week(s)?

I suspect there will be some sort of ban heavily mitigated to back up the officials. Something daft like 6 weeks mitigated to 4 due to the "act" being accidental due to influence of Darge, halved again for good behaviour and halved to 1 for sending biscuits to the panel. Meaning he'll miss the game he probably wasn't going to start anyway.

[Sandstorm]

Even Mostert was moaning about the arm around his neck area, not about his leg being "crushed". Thought it was a rubbish penalty at the time, let alone a yellow-to-red card. Insane decision.

[charltom]

Was Kinghorn missing in defence for a couple of tries on his wing yesterday?

At the first, Jordan tried to make the cover tackle. Was Kinghorn covering FB at that point or should it have been down to him?

I've not seen anyone mention it but it felt to me like Blair was the missing link in defence at least a couple of times. Am I wrong?

[charltom]

And has anyone seen any stats from yesterday's match? I was disappointed with what little I saw on screen yesterday, but I can't find anything beyond the basics today either - no tackle numbers, percentages etc.

[topofthemoon]

And has anyone seen any stats from yesterday's match? I was disappointed with what little I saw on screen yesterday, but I can't find anything beyond the basics today either - no tackle numbers, percentages etc.

https://www.rugbypass.com/live/scotland ... /?g=941810

[Tichtheid]

Was Kinghorn missing in defence for a couple of tries on his wing yesterday?

At the first, Jordan tried to make the cover tackle. Was Kinghorn covering FB at that point or should it have been down to him?

I've not seen anyone mention it but it felt to me like Blair was the missing link in defence at least a couple of times. Am I wrong?

For both Mpimpi's tries Kinghorn was off his wing, for the first I think he and Jordan had swapped, for the second he was right over defending on the opposite wing and ran the full width covering, but didn't get there in time. He was also on the opposite wing in attack a good few times - it leads me to believe it came from the coaches

[Tichtheid]

Dempsey, Williamson and Brown out for Portugal

Matthews and Hepburn drafted in

[Big D]

Was Kinghorn missing in defence for a couple of tries on his wing yesterday?

At the first, Jordan tried to make the cover tackle. Was Kinghorn covering FB at that point or should it have been down to him?

I've not seen anyone mention it but it felt to me like Blair was the missing link in defence at least a couple of times. Am I wrong?

For both Mpimpi's tries Kinghorn was off his wing, for the first I think he and Jordan had swapped, for the second he was right over defending on the opposite wing and ran the full width covering, but didn't get there in time. He was also on the opposite wing in attack a good few times - it leads me to believe it came from the coaches

I agree with this. Whole defence was too narrow for 1st but clearly was meant to be Jordan on the edge and he unfortunately whiffed the tackle.

The second was very clever attack. Mpimpi was way over to the right off the set piece then sweeps back quickly. That was just food attacking play and not sure the defence could really do too much.

[weegie01]

Dempsey, Williamson and Brown out for Portugal

Matthews and Hepburn drafted in

Ignoring Brown for the moment, a lock and an No 8 drop out, a prop and a hooker come in. I'm sure there is some logic somewhere.

[I like neeps]

Dempsey, Williamson and Brown out for Portugal

Matthews and Hepburn drafted in

Ignoring Brown for the moment, a lock and an No 8 drop out, a prop and a hooker come in. I'm sure there is some logic somewhere.

I guess they're covered at back row and lock (or there is nobody worth calling up but I think Sykes is worth it) and they aren't happy with the prop/hooker performances or props and bookers are carrying knocks and won't have a full week training so they're here for scrums and lineouts.

[Openside]

That wasn’t even a penalty. There was no crock roll and both Scotland players hit the ruck straight on. I don’t understand that at all.

I am glad someone else thought tha, the most mystifying bit about it though is how someone thought after endless reviews it needed to be upgraded to red. I didn't even think it was a penalty let alone a yellow card.

[Yr Alban]

Nobody else pointing out it was Darge that did the alleged croc roll and Cummings that got the yellow, and the upgrade on replay?

Mostly because neither did a croc roll and nobody is quite sure why the card was issued. It was Cummings who fell on the lower limb of the Saffa so presumably that's why he got the card.

Is he now suspended for next week(s)?

I suspect there will be some sort of ban heavily mitigated to back up the officials. Something daft like 6 weeks mitigated to 4 due to the "act" being accidental due to influence of Darge, halved again for good behaviour and halved to 1 for sending biscuits to the panel. Meaning he'll miss the game he probably wasn't going to start anyway.

I reckon you’ll be bang on with this. It was obviously a terrible decision compounded by an even worse TMO review, and this will be blindingly obvious to the panel, but they’ll find some way of fudging it without admitting it was a complete fuckup.

At least, thanks to the new rule, we didn’t have to play a man down for 60-odd minutes.