State of the Nation: Scotland
With the Six Nations done and dusted for another year, we look at the state of affairs in each of the competing nations. Next up, Scotland.
After an impressive campaign during the 2017 end-of-year internationals, and Edinburgh and especially Glasgow Warriors doing well in the PRO14 competition, there was plenty of optimism that Scotland would improve on their joint-second placed finish – with Ireland and France – from 2017.
They eventually finished in third place this year but, like 2017, they won three out of five matches although they only amassed 13 points in the final standings compared to last year’s 14.
With head coach Gregor Townsend in charge of his first Six Nations campaign, there was an air of excitement ahead of their tournament opener against Wales in Cardiff. However, Scotland were outplayed in most facets of play and suffered a humiliating 34-7 defeat with a Peter Horne try just before full-time adding some respectability to the score.
They headed to Murrayfield for their next match, against France, and despite a slow start in which they were trailing 17-7 by the half-hour mark and 20-14 at half-time, six second half penalties from Greig Laidlaw eventually secured them a hard-fought 32-26 victory.
After suffering a 61-21 loss to England at Twickenham in 2017, Scotland proved too strong for the Auld Enemy at Murrayfield this year and in the process ended a 10-year winless streak against their neighbours thanks to a 25-13 triumph. Huw Jones enhanced his growing reputation by scoring a brace of tries in that Test after Sean Maitland also crossed the whitewash early on.
Despite those wins at Murrayfield, a major concern was Scotland’s poor performances away from home and they followed up that Round One defeat to Wales in Cardiff with a 28-8 loss to eventual champions Ireland in Dublin and only a 79th minute penalty from Greig Laidlaw secured them a flattering 29-27 victory against Italy in Rome in their last match.
While stalwarts like Laidlaw, Stuart Hogg, Tommy Seymour and captain John Barclay deserve credit for leading the charge at various stages of the campaign, less experienced players like Jones, Finn Russell, Jonny Gray, Hamish Watson and Stuart McInally also came to the fore with some fine showings.
Barclay delivered several superb performances throughout the tournament and led from the front while Gray’s high-workrate was exemplified by several excellent defensive efforts and he eventually finished as the tournament’s leading defender with 100 tackles made in five matches.
Scotland’s enterprising style of play made them a hit with most neutrals, but there is still plenty of room for improvement especially on defence and despite scoring 11 tries in the tournament, they conceded 14 and finished with a points difference of minus 27 with only bottom-placed Italy conceding more.
That win over Italy has moved Scotland into fifth place oh the World Rugby Rankings, and they will be confident they can improve on that position by winning all three of their Tests against Canada, USA and Argentina in the upcoming June internationals.