Scotland V Italy - End of season redemption

First topic message reminder :

Scotland

15 Peter Murchie (Glasgow Warriors) 1 cap

14 Tommy Seymour (Glasgow Warriors) 1 cap
13 Alex Dunbar (Glasgow Warriors) 2 caps, 1 try, 5 points
12 Matt Scott (Edinburgh Rugby) 14 caps, 2 tries, 10 points
11 Sean Lamont (Glasgow Warriors) 78 caps, 10 tries, 50 points

10 Tom Heathcote (Bath Rugby) 2 caps
9 Greig Laidlaw (Edinburgh Rugby) CAPTAIN 20 caps, 2 tries, 18 conversions, 44 penalties, 178 points

1 Alasdair Dickinson (Edinburgh Rugby) 26 caps, 1 try, 5 points
2 Scott Lawson (Newcastle Falcons) 37 caps, 2 tries, 10 points
3 Euan Murray (Worcester Warriors) 55 caps, 2 tries, 10 points
4 Tim Swinson (Glasgow Warriors) 1 cap
5 Alastair Kellock (Glasgow Warriors) 54 caps, 1 try, 5 points
6 David Denton (Edinburgh Rugby) 13 caps
7 Alasdair Strokosch (Perpignan) vice-captain 34 caps, 1 try, 5 points
8 Johnnie Beattie (Montpellier) 23 caps, 3 tries, 15 points

Substitutes

16 Fraser Brown (Glasgow Warriors) uncapped
17 Moray Low (Glasgow Warriors) 20 caps
18 Jon Welsh (Glasgow Warriors) 1 cap
19 Grant Gilchrist (Edinburgh Rugby) 2 caps
20 Robert Harley (Glasgow Warriors) 4 caps
21 Henry Pyrgos (Glasgow Warriors) 8 caps, 1 try, 5 points
22 Duncan Taylor (Saracens) 2 caps
23 Tim Visser (Edinburgh Rugby) 11 caps, 6 tries, 30 points

Italy

Italy: 15 Andrea Masi, 14 Leonardo Sarto, 13 Luca Morisi, 12 Alberto Sgarbi, 11 Giovanbattista Venditti, 10 Alberto Di Bernardo, 9 Tobias Botes, 8 Sergio Parisse (capt), 7 Robert Barbieri, 6 Joshua Furno, 5 Marco Bortolami, 4 Leandro Cedaro, 3 Martin Castrogiovanni, 2 Davide Giazzon, 1 Matias Aguero.
Replacements: 16 Leonardo Ghiraldini, 17 Alberto De Marchi, 18 Lorenzo Cittadini, 19 Antonio Pavanello, 20 Alessandro Zanni, 21 Alberto Chillon, 22 Gonzalo Canale, 23 Luke McLean

Kick off - 13:15

Referee - Haven't a scooby


Previous results

South Africa 30 - Scotland 17
Samoa 27 - Scotland 17

Pyrgos comes on to replace Heathcote at 48 minutes, Laidlaw moves to 10 

Watch the replay of that scrum, Kellock is too high to provide any support to Low.

Its becoming mandatory for Scott to have a try dissalowed for marginal passes against Italy

Are Scotland going to manage to lose this one?

For the record I don't think it matters whatsoever, but the lads could really do with wins in general. Especially Embra ones.

Could go down to the wire this one

wales606 wrote:Could go down to the wire this one

Only Scotland can look like a better team and still bring it to the wire. And lose.

Running out of steam here, and giving away far too many penalties

Argh. Wassa score? Sitting in a UAE carwash. What's the score, are we stuffed and how has the match gone?

Muchas, muchas grassy arse.

Argh. Wassa score? Sitting in a UAE carwash. What's the score, are we stuffed and how has the match gone?

Muchas, muchas grassy arse.

29 - 23 to Italy

Aw, holy sh!tballs, Batman. How long to go?

ref!

9 minutes to go

Parisse studs Laidlaw in the face, gets a friendly bit of advice about watching his feet. Amazing.

One thing you can say about Leighton Hodges is that he is consistent. 

consistently pi$h

Scotland conceded in the first minute, been bossed too much at the scrum, and dropping the ball a couple of times too many at the key moments. 

Is it bad that I'm getting kind of bored of watching this team lose when they're better than losing?

Linesman was looking straight at it as well.

If we can't beat this Italian team, then we've really, really got problems. We need this win for confidence quite badly.

Masi is so good.

What's the point of a TMO who calls passes forward that weren't, but misses a Parisse kick to the head which drew blood?

Scrum properly Kellock! No bloody wonder were getting mullered when your body position is 30cm higher than the front rows.

Pass was marginal. I really don't think the 1st official should overrule the 4th official based on the TV screen though. The only reason he warned Parisse about the boot was because of the screen too - not sure I like that; lends too much ability to govern the game by producers.

2 weeks in a row we've lost out because of these extended tmo powers - think its fair to say I'm not a fan!

Also, if we get whitewashed in this summer, does that mean we'll slam the AIs as a reverse of last year?

Jon Welsh is the best loosehead in Scotland.

Scotland had the chance of a couple of overlaps then

Looks like Italy will take this

I wish we hadn't taken off Heathcote at 48. Pyrgos has looked underpar and having Laidlaw plus Heathcote plus Scott gave us an incredibly strong 3/4 line to take it to the Italians. I understand why Johnson did it but , still , win was more important I think ... plus giving Heathcote SOME faith ...

Go on Strokosh

GO STROKER!

Against the head, last chance for Scotland

They have no structure

But Stockosh walks over!

Fairly easy conversion to win for Scotland

Congrats Scotland, 30-29 against Italy last minute. Not pleased overall, but win is a win and I'd take that result next 6N in Rome tbh ...

30 - 29 to Scotland

Very lucky finish for Scotland in the end

Scotland 30 - 29 Italy

wales606 wrote:Very lucky finish for Scotland in the end

Scotland 30 - 29 Italy

Lucky how, they were pushing at the door for large parts of the game?

Get in Stroker. You deserved that for this tour.

Italy have gone way backwards since the 6N.

Good lord. Finally, something to celebrate. We needed that fillup. Do we get IRB ranking points for this one?

In summary, were we good or were Italy poor? Or a bit of both? Any comments welcome.

Scotland were poor. We were pretty much destroyed in the scrum. Can't take many positives from it, apart from a couple of decent individual performances. Scott being the stand-out Scottish player.

Scotland made hard work of that, they had a few overlap chances in the second half but always seem to take the ball in to contact, very frustating to watch. Can't understand why Heathcote was taken off so early, he looked to be playing well enough and Pyrgos doesn't add very much when he comes on.

We were really poor. Scrum got anhialated, Low got subbed as a sub and Welsh made an instant difference. If this stupid attempt to swap props about willy nilly continues, everyone behind it should be taken out and shot. Penalty count was atrocious, and they just didnt seem to learn that they were getting whistled off the park. Good width in the first half, but lost all shape when Heathcote got strangely taken off.

+ves:
Scott
Laidlaw
Dunbar
Lamont
Strokosch
Swinson

-ves:
Dickinson
Murray
Kellock
Low
Denton

mehs:
everyone else

Imperialbigdave wrote:We were really poor. Scrum got anhialated, Low got subbed as a sub and Welsh made an instant difference. If this stupid attempt to swap props about willy nilly continues, everyone behind it should be taken out and shot. Penalty count was atrocious, and they just didnt seem to learn that they were getting whistled off the park. Good width in the first half, but lost all shape when Heathcote got strangely taken off.

Can't agree more Welsh is a loosehead and Low a tighthead.

I wanted to broke my screen when Low came in at loosehead against South Africa while Welsh warmed the bench the whole 80 minutes.
Murray is in steep decline too and Dickinson is a very average scrummager.
Props selection policy is suspect to say the least

George Carlin wrote:Good lord. Finally, something to celebrate. We needed that fillup. Do we get IRB ranking points for this one?

Yeah. Should be up to 9th

<---- that's me kissing Strokosh's bald head!

Gaaaaaah.

Ok. I can stop clawing my thighs now. What the Farrell happened in our scrum? No one in the pack looked likely to have trouble, on paper at least (maybe Dickinson, but he has surprised me this tournament), but we were systematically destroyed up front. Counter rucking was good, but on our own ball we never seemed secure, particularly once Pyrgos came on.

On the backs, Heathcote looked solid if unspectacular, but all the good stuff came from Scott and Dunbar. We all know Dunbar isn't a 13, but we have a pretty tidy partnership there that will grow with familiarity.

Finally, a massive shout out for Al Stroker - not just for being good today, but for finally living up to the hard man image he cultivates so readily. Next to Scott, he is our standout player from this tour.

Well, that was a let of, we wont win many international games with our scrum being destroyed like it was. 

A very strange decision to take of Heathcote, Pyrgos is an able club player - but not up to International standard.  

Scott has improved hugely since his international debut, with each passing game he looks more and more like an international 12.  I would like both he and whoever plays at 10 to start demanding more ball from Laidlaw, although he played well he does try and control everything from 9.  

All in all this tour has been a useful exercise, at least players like NDL know they have to be playing very well to get back in the side.

Well done Scotland, just one or two points away from another losing streak so consider yourselves lucky. The end of Johnson's honeymoon period is well overdue, you need a coach who knows how to play ball ASAP (Verne Cotter).

RDW_Scotland wrote:2 weeks in a row we've lost out because of these extended tmo powers - think its fair to say I'm not a fan!

I read that and (understandably) thought you'd lost. I then checked the score and saw you'd got a last minute winner!

Well with the squad left over all we were needing from that was a win - and we got that which is fantastic!

It will be such a boost for the squad having flogged it out the last few weeks.  I know it doesn't mean much but I think it is massive we won.


Scott was our best player (again!!) and I thought Lamont had another good game.  Actually thought Denton did pretty well (stupid forward pass aside) and made some huge carries so not sure where the criticism has come from.

Beattie has been disappointing this tour - I appreciate he's been carrying niggly injuries but we need a lot more from him than he has been showing.

What was most pleasing is that we created scoring chances and looked good with the ball in hand - if we can combine that with parity up front then the future looks bright.

5 months until the next stressful Scotland game....!

jelly wrote:

RDW_Scotland wrote:2 weeks in a row we've lost out because of these extended tmo powers - think its fair to say I'm not a fan!

I read that and (understandably) thought you'd lost. I then checked the score and saw you'd got a last minute winner!

Last week Hamilton got binned on the TMOs orders even though the ref and linesman thought it was fine - this week Matt Scott had a great try disallowed because the replay suggested it was marginally forward even though the ref was OK with it in live action. If it wasn't for the extended TMO powers these things wouldn't have happened.

Of course if these things had happened to the opposition I would be singing it's praises!