Scotland finish 3rd, yet why does it feel like 6th?

The final result, 3rd, below England and Wales, above Italy, Ireland and France, should make any Scottish fan feel very proud. Especially after many years of continuous 5th and 6th place finishes. Yet, to me at least, it feels as though we have won the wooden spoon again.

Scotland's last three games have been extremely negative. The game and tactics implied by Scotland today vs France, were extremely poor and utterly boring. I was clapping France over the try line twice today, as they were the only team who seemed keen to play rugby, despite playing rather crap themselves, again. Any lessons that may have been learnt, or perceived to have been learnt after the game last weekend against Wales, were totally ignored. Scotland came out with the same crap as they did against Wales (as we all predicted they would). Kick it, kick it and kick it some more. There was no attempt to play rugby until the game was lost. Today was just unacceptable as far as i am concerned. A poor, poor game!

Maitland was taken off at 30 min mark. I can only assume he was injured because to take him off at 30 minutes was just pure madness otherwise.

The worst bit is, once France took an unbeatable lead, Scotland played some real rugby. And it was gorgeous. They scored the try of the weekend with very little effort, and at the same time, showed all us Scottish fans what we should have been seeing every game this tournament.

So we finish 3rd and it is a fantastic result. Yet I feel worse than I did last year when Italy handed us the wooden spoon. Today was a sad day for Scottish rugby, yet many will hail this 6 Nations as a success. I will not. But I will believe we have the potential to be 6N champions with right coach and tactics.

A makeshift coaching team, a team which had lost confidence. Thats a decent performance this year. Not good but by no means bad. We scored a few tries - won two games. Never looked well beaten with heads down like last year.

Someting to build on. Let getthe coaching staff sorted. Get the right people in

bsando wrote:

Maitland was taken off at 30 min mark. I can only assume he was injured because to take him off at 30 minutes was just pure madness otherwise.

Of course it was. I cant believe theres even a question over that.

I was in rather rowdy Welsh pub so did not know what happened there. But I was pretty darn upset to se him go off. What sort of injury did he have Imperial?

Bsando, I'm not sure what was wrong with Maitland - Cotter simply stated that Max Evans had come on to replace him and the French TV didn't show any shots.

We can only assume that Maitland was hurt, as there wasn't much wrong with how he was playing.

TJ wrote:A makeshift coaching team, a team which had lost confidence. Thats a decent performance this year. Not good but by no means bad. We scored a few tries - won two games. Never looked well beaten with heads down like last year.

Someting to build on. Let getthe coaching staff sorted. Get the right people in

Fair enough TJ, I agree. But if Scotland continue this way in the summer I will be very annoyed. We had a good chance to play some rugby today, to reinstall some confidence in the players, and all we came out with was a negative kicking game. Not a good way to finish the tournament.

I think there are negative and positive kicking games - if it works, it's positive in my opinion.

Laidlaw and Weir kicking the ball behind the French worked really well in the first half. Screw it, we were ahead at half time. I'm never going to complain about a tactic that works.

However, I do think we should have changed tactics at half-time to a more wide-channel style (the rugby equivalent of Balboa switching from southpaw in Rocky II), particularly when the weather dried up and Michalak started playing well (damn him).

Don't get me wrong, I feel your frustration that we only started spreading it at 70-odd minutes in, but we didn't lose because of our kicking.

I agree Bsando. SJ set up his team as an exercise in damage limitation. This was compounded by some poor selections - no Barclay, Dunbar, McArthur and no loosehead on the bench, I also don't think Gilchrist was the right choice for today either.

What makes this worse, is that we were quite plainly not playing to our strengths - our outside backs! I'm not one that would advocate chucking the ball around all the time, a strong kicking game is necessary, but a combination of no front foot ball created by the forwards and a game plan to kick the leather off the ball the whole game, effectively, made Visser, Hogg and Maitland almost redundant.

Under Ryan out forwards have regressed badly, we were dominated in the contact the whole tournament. I would like to thank them both for getting us to third, a rare achievement for us, and start the search for somebody else.

Priority no.1 is to know the Scottish game inside out. Too many of the Scottish players are there on reputation alone, I think simply because SJ didn't want to take a risk on players he wasn't fully up to speed with. He would rather trust Ford over McArthur, for example. Anybody that follows the Scottish game knows that Ford was going through a nightmare patch this season, but because he is the big name, he gets picked.

What 6N result did Scotland and its fans truly expect this season with a new coach?

No, not a smart line. A true question. There must have been a reasonable expectation. I'm wondering what it might have been.

3rd with a new coach, having suffered last place last year with a coach who wasn't new, has to be seen as a step forward. No?

Give the new coach/coaches a break...they barely know the players as a unit yet and are just in an 'introducing ourselves and our methods' mode. There is a tendancy increasing in rugby circles to be as unreasonably impatient with coaching as football fans are of theirs.

Ireland have endured a downhill run for four years now with the same coach and our performances have slid downhill in equal measure to his length in office.

In short, we've earned the right now to say we're unhappy and that our unhappiness is directed at our long-term underperforming coaches. But I think Scotland is in, or should be in, a patience period.

Some of these comments are a tad over dramatic.

had i been offered 3rd in the 6N at the start of the tourney and a convincing win against a slick Italian outfit who stung France and Ireland and gave England a massive fright you would have drawn back a stump.

Gilchrist played well too. He didn't set the world on fire but he hit the rucks well and had a go.

What we are faced with here is a stark choice between the 10s. A kicking orientated game orchestrated by Weir or a ball retention style led by Jackson.

i feel really positive about our performances. In every game when we kept the ball we looked menacing. It would have been nice to involve dunbar and macarthur but their time will come.

tactics were a bit off this season and it would have been nice to win all our home games. But we have turned the corner and a few heads this year and have established an attacking presence in the form of Hogg, Maitland and Visser.

Back from the pub, cheap St Patrick's day deals on so bear with, and a few thoughts on events in Paris...

Firstly in the first half, following on from the squashed goblins great break and chip kick, the ball bobbles into the French 22. Now in order to secure a 22 drop out, I assumed the French defender would touch it down. However he booted it off the back of the pitch. Surely that should be a 5m scrum to Scotland???

Secondly, 3rd game in a row we've won less than a 3rd of possession, needs to change. Please whoever is our coach in the next game, that funny tournament down in SA, please play a proper 7...

And finally why ohhh, why do we play such a negative game when we have the ability to score a try from first phase 80m out?

Overall I don't think we should be to negative. If I'd been offered a 3rd place finish per tournament I'd have been pretty happy. We've won games that matter, ie 6 Nations game, and provided Scotland win 2 out of the next 10 we'll have bettered Robinson's record. What is clear through, is that a slight change of tactics are required. Our backline when we create decent ball is exciting and we need to utilise more. Let's hope we can kick on from here. The future is bright

Ohhh, also what are people's thoughts on Michalak's punching of Hogg? Penalty? Yellow card? red?

why?

cos you have no attack...no go forward from 10-13...you have a class 15 but no way to let him loose as your backs ae poor, great defence, dog, carriers, scrum, lineout, just witless in midfield

I think to say we have no attack is a bit harsh Beefy. I'd say that we lack ambition though. Case in point when we put our mind to it. Visser's try was very constructed. Great ball off the top, nice lass from Prygos. Lamont runs a great line and totally takes out a French defender allowing Scott to scamper through and Visser to score.
More of the same needed but earlier in the game

Imperialbigdave wrote:

bsando wrote:

Maitland was taken off at 30 min mark. I can only assume he was injured because to take him off at 30 minutes was just pure madness otherwise.

Of course it was. I cant believe theres even a question over that.

Maitland seemed to get injured making a tackle. I remember when it happened I thought to myself, great we have lost him for the rest of game. I was surprised when he got back up. So I assume he never recovered fully from it.

I think this only highlights the issue of SJ's selection as we had to bring Evans on, I have no idea why he is near this team.

Well said Glove! That is the really annoying thing. Johnson just needed to alter the tactics ever so slightly and Scotland would have had more ball in hand.

I was just left feeling really frustrated after last nights game. It just felt like to me that Johnson did nothing to improve the amount of ball Scotland had. Possession was 35% and territory was 27%. I think the best we've had in terms of possession was against Wales with 45% possession.

Scotland had nothing to lose, they were going to finish 3rd no matter what thanks to Italy's win over Ireland. But obviously, I'll take 3rd, that is a great result and hopefully the SRU will review this 6N thoroughly and we'll see some really strong performances in the summer

Think this sums things up nicely:

http://www.scotsman.com/sport/rugby/top-rugby-stories/six-nations-scots-can-t-keep-relying-on-lady-luck-1-2841673

I watched the game with England supporters, so I didn't feel quite so bad when we lost. I just imagined how they felt! Schadenfreude eh!

I think we played OKAY against the French. It was an improvement from Ireland and Wales, our tactics in the second half weren't right. We let the French get back in, and to their credit they did it well.

I think 3rd place is a good starting point, we have a tough summer, which should be good for our team to build on any successes. We should look to get a bit more running play in against Samoa and SA and Italy will be looking for revenge. I'm looking forward to it!

I'd say Johnson isn't a permanent option, he's done well to scratch together what he can but he's not a head coach, and whilst that isn't necessarily showing now, it'd probably show in the next couple of years towards the world cup which is what we don't need! Look at Wales, that's a team that have played together a long time under a good coach and can produce the results when it matters, even if said coach isn't coaching them. That's what we need to aim for, let's hope we can rebuild from here!

Next year we should be going for a Grandslam. Note the word SHOULD, doesn't mean we'll get there just yet!

I thought Scotland did try to play some rugby and showed a bit more than in previous games.

Weir is the better player than Jackson and did not just kick the ball. He got the ball just 8 times and kicked two of them.

Considering the situation we came into the tourney in then while 2 wins is not enough its a bare pass. I said befoer the tourney 3rd place and 3 wins was the minimum to be happy with. we got close

The final result, 3rd, below England and Wales, above Italy, Ireland and France, should make any Scottish fan feel very proud. Especially after many years of continuous 5th and 6th place finishes. Yet, to me at least, it feels as though we have won the wooden spoon again.


It is called Shock. It was a total shock to the system that is the 6ns.
I dont think that any one poster on these boards predicted the results.

And nobody thought that France would ever get the wooden spoon.

Like i say it is A TOTAL; SHOCK TO THE SYSTEM.

Enjoy it why you can. At least untill next year.

I agree! I think everyone here has forgotten losing to Fiji or hoe crud we were last year! A massive step in the right direction.

we just need to work on the breakdown which is symptomatic of not selecting a 7 and try to hang onto the ball more.

Huge improvement IMO

GLove39 wrote:Ohhh, also what are people's thoughts on Michalak's punching of Hogg? Penalty? Yellow card? red?

Yes a cowardly punch to the back of head by Michelack - there was broad applause when he went off injured after that - talk about justiceand /schadenfreude. On this subject why did Hogg's team-mates allow him to be punched and jostled by 3 French players with only Beattie reacting belatedly. There comes a time where you have to defend or come to assistance of team-mates and it did not happen. 99 call was required here.

Michalak will be cited and given a ban. If our players had got involved they would have received the same. It seems to be the way of things these days, let them sort it themselves. Barring the first cheap shot, there wasn't a meaningful blow thrown never mind landed. I seem to remember Beattie and a n other being involved in something similar in the Italy game.

Regards to Weir only receiving the ball 8 times, that is a complete disgrace. You would expect your wingers to get more ball than that. It shows two things for me
1) The forwards aren't doing enough which has been obvious

And
2) Laidlaw is taking too much on himself and not trusting those outside him to make the right decision. This is more of a problem for me.

You cannot play international rugby with 9 men and expect to win regularly. As soon as Pyrgos came on we started to move the ball and look dangerous. No coincidence as it happens every time he has replaced Laidlaw.

Michalak is out injured for 2 months so he might as well be cited
An more worried about Parra injury and the consequences on clermont HC campaign.

With Laidlaw I think its a consequence of what has happened to him and the team over the last year. He is not a poor player and will come good - infact I think he has had a good series but he has tried to win every game himself and it has not worked. he has had so little space and time to work in as his forwards have not given him the platform

Tj that's what I was getting at. He needs to trust those around him.

Pyrgos obviously does and it shows where the teams strengths lie when the ball is moved. Scott seems to be able to break fairly regularly and there always seems to be support when that happens. Horne or Dunbar instead of Lamont would give proper fire power 12-15. Never thought I'd say that. We need a proper back row though. The summer tour should see new blood and a changing of the guard in some positions and some others returning from injury. . Ie 2,3 4,7&10?(heathcote)

That has to be a tactical thing. Laidlaw rarely kicks possession away so much at Edinburgh

So why not pyrgos then ?

The warriors boys think that Horne may be the answer at ten. Horne , Scott, Dunbar / Ansbro midfield. With Hogg , visser and Maitland . Ooft! I'd pay to see that in action.

I think Laidlaws confidence took a real beating and he has been slow to recover it. Pyrgos looks good tho and two have two decent SHs is great.

I would persevere with Laidlaw. He needs to kick less and feed the backs more tho. He did try to do this at times against the french.

Me too but he needs telt as we say.