Wales vs Scotland - Inaugural Doddie Weir Cup

First topic message reminder :

WALES vs SCOTLAND

Saturday the 3rd of November 2018

Principality Stadium, Cardiff Wales

KO: 14:45

This game will be the first occasion when a newly created 'Doddie Weir Cup' will be played for - donated by the Welsh Rugby Union, the trophy will continue to be at stake when the two sides meet in future similar circumstances.

In June 2017 former Scotland international and British & Irish Lion Doddie Weir revealed he was suffering from Motor Neurone Disease and, from the outset, has been driven to help fellow sufferers and seek ways to further research into the, as yet, incurable disease.

Doddie and his Trustees launched the registered charity 'My Name'5 Doddie Foundation' and a series of Welsh rugby initiatives over the course of the weekend will raise money for the foundation and bring Scottish and Welsh rugby communities together.

https://www.myname5doddie.co.uk/

Wales Team
1. Nicky Smith (21 Caps) 2. Ken Owens (57 Caps) 3. Dillon Lewis (5 Caps) 4. Cory Hill (18 Caps) 5. Alun Wyn Jones (117 Caps) (CAPT) 6. Dan Lydiate (62 Caps) 7. Justin Tipuric (57 Caps) 8. Ross Moriarty (23 Caps) 9. Gareth Davies (33 Davies) 10. Gareth Anscombe (18 Caps)11. Luke Morgan (*UNCAPPED) 12. Hadleigh Parkes (8 Caps) 13. Jonathan Davies (65 Caps) 14. George North (76 Caps) 15. Leigh Halfpenny (78 Caps)

Replacements: 16. Elliot Dee (10 Caps) 17. Rob Evans (27 Caps) 18. Leon Brown (3 Caps) 19. Adam Beard (4 Caps) 20. Aaron Wainwright (1 Cap) 21. Tomos Williams (2 Caps) 22. Jarrod Evans (UNCAPPED) 23. Steff Evans (10 Caps)

Scotland Team
Kinghorn (Edinburgh); Seymour, H Jones, Dunbar, L Jones; Hastings, Price (all Glasgow); Dell, McInally (capt), Nel, Toolis (all Edinburgh), Gray (Glasgow), Ritchie, Watson (both Edinburgh), Wilson (Glasgow).

Replacements: Brown, Allan (both Glasgow), Berghan, Gilchrist (both Edinburgh), Fagerson, G Horne, P Horne (all Glasgow), Graham (Edinburgh).

Baws

This is reminiscent of Glasgow's woes in Europe of recent years - lacking power and giving away lots of penalties

That was part woeful tackling from Scotland but part sheer power from north

Ooo. We have a game now

Mcinally is amazing at the back of driving mauls! Desperately needed that.

"you could say Seymour jumped into 1/2p" - seriously martyn Williams??

Why? Why??? Turnover ball and we do another pointless grubber

Townsend will probably given that scoreline given how little gainline success we've had and the number of penalties.

Our kicking from hand has been terrible too.

Wales backs, who looked good on paper, not looking too good on the day. Perhaps rusty? New combos proving difficult to gel? It looks a bit like Warrenball of old where we try to hit it up on the crash all the time until a penalty or a gap. In the last AIs, 6N and summer there was a definite move to a more free flowing game from Wales. Yet to see it in this game, but early days in the test series yet.

Really bad decision from Hastings kicking after the Dunbar break - Welsh defence was back peddling and we had to keep the pace up with ball in hand

Bit weird that we strangled Scotland for much of the first half, yet are only four up.

North’s try was ridiculous strength. I’m sure both tries won’t look good on the review for both teams’ defences though.

Surprising scrum dominance from Wales there.

That’s better!

Oh dear Huw. Oh dear

Huw Jones has been crap

Excellent try by Davies, but Scotland read that very poorly defensively

RDW_Scotland wrote:Huw Jones has been crap

There is something of the showpony about the guy.

We've just not been on it today - that maul was in trouble and should have gone to the 9. Price had his hands on it!

We’re being far too ponderous

Not sure about that clear out by Watson. Shoulder use?

This is getting silly. Brain fart after brain fart

I just knew that was going to end up a Wales penalty - nothings worked at all today.

George has done more in 3 mins than price did in 60 mins.

George Horne.

Fowles can bugger off.

Price can bugger off too

And his brother drops it

Ryan Wilson can bugger off too

They got in each others way!!!

The Oracle wrote:Not sure about that clear out by Watson. Shoulder use?

I did think that.

I also don’t know how Moriarty was possibly bound there.

This really hasn't been a good performance. Much better than February obviously but we just haven't looked right all game.

Ryan Wilson hasn't had a good game. Real shame our main alternatives are now injured.

Very scrappy game from both sides I feel. Bit of a subdued atmosphere at the end. Hmmm.

Yikes, that was a scrappy flashback to the days of being unable to score in the 22. George Horne did much better than Price though, made game much more interesting when he came on!

Congratulations wales thoroughly deserving of the win. They didn't do a lot of flash or fancy rugby but did the basics of international rugby very well - physicality, good set piece and playing the ref well. You could see they had much more experience at this level.

That was a really disappointing Scotland performance. Price and Hastings didn't play well and Hastings has showed he still has a lot to learn. They certainly weren't helped by the forwards though who just didn't win the collisions and didn't work well as a unit.

When will Townsend learn that you just can't win at this level if you don't front up physically? I know our hands were tied selection wise but that back row lacked balance.

Nice wee cameo from Graham at the end - showed he's hungry and willing at this level too.

Cheers RDW

Good luck for the rest of the series.

The Oracle wrote:Cheers RDW

Good luck for the rest of the series.

I think we may need it - seriously lacking in grunt in the back row with current injuries! Denton, Bradbury and Thomson all likely to miss the series.

Well, Glasgow fans have been delighted that Huw Jones finally managed to bring his Scotland form to Glasgow: sadly, it looks as if the price was that now he has taken his old Glasgow form into his Scotland performances.

I've been on the England thread. Have we all seen the backside clip?

https://twitter.com/dan__24/status/1058759688169369600

Well done to Wales on a very solid performance and an almost herculean defensive effort. I don't think Scotland were as bad as people are saying they were. 11 points off Wales without Laidlaw, Russell, Maitland and Hogg isn't bad. Hastings was decent but comparable to some of Russell's early performances in a Scotland shirt. Huw Jones needs to sort his defence. Dunbar was back to close to his best. How Price gets picked ahead of Horne I'll never know. Thought Wilson seemed a bit underpowered. MacInally I think is the best hooker in Britain and Ireland. Looking to next week, I'd quite like to see Hastings get another start so Russell gets a week off of sorts (or perhaps to Argentina and Australia) I'd like to see:

1. Dell
2. MacInally
3. Nel
4. Gray
5. Gilchrist
6. Thomson
7. Watson
8. Fagerson
9. Horne
10. Russell
11. Maitland
12. Dunbar
13. Jones
14. Seymour
15. Kinghorn

A bit of s disappointing game for my first visit to the Principality.

Wales had a bit to much nous and experience and their defence was excellent. We did not really trouble it unfortunately.

We were in the game bit did not take our chances and then gave away two pretty soft tries. Reality was we were always playing catch up and that is difficult against a side as good as Wales.

Anyway enjoyed the day out, well done to Wales and hope we put together a better performance against you in the 6N

BigGee wrote:A bit of s disappointing game for my first visit to the Principality.

Wales had a bit to much nous and experience and their defence was excellent. We did not really trouble it unfortunately.

We were in the game bit did not take our chances and then gave away two pretty soft tries. Reality was we were always playing catch up and that is difficult against a side as good as Wales.

Anyway enjoyed the day out, well done to Wales and hope we put together a better performance against you in the 6N

How did you find the atmosphere, BigGee? I wasn’t there today but have always found the autumn games a bit muted in comparison to the 6N games. Seemed a little flat on the TV. Which would be a shame because it was still Wales v Scotland so you’d hope it would mirror the passions and atmos of the 6N.

In truth it probably was a bit flat. I expected it to be noisier with the roof shut.

Probably not helped by neither side really hitting their straps

123456789. wrote:I don't think Scotland were as bad as people are saying they were.

I think we were worse. Unbelievably naive and tactically wanting. We played more rugby off George Horne in the last 10 minutes than the previous 70. Jonny Gray's double movement was unacceptable from one of our more experienced players.

Well played Wales, by far the better side and could've played another 80 minutes without being worried about losing their defence was that impressive

I don't think it was great stuff from either side. Looks as if Wales just played to a gameplan that Gatland was confident would work, I hope he has something else up his sleeve for the upcoming games. Commiserations Scotland, we needed the test match however and you provided a good test, and of course it was for a good cause. Hope Doddie and the rest of you had a great day out.

Tips and Anscombe played well but were overhyped by commentary and the pundit team. Tips getting MOTM for making a number of tackles when AWJ made more . Anscombe seems a little slow at moving the ball too. He's playing well close to the gain line however so the rest of the team need to give him room and run onto the ball at pace, we were losing too much ground at times.

uninspiring

I think this WG’s cunning plan to beat Aus. Convince Cheika that we’ve forgotten all that going wide nonsense, but we haven’t really. Got my tickets and can’t wait. Steff didn’t get many touches in his cameo but he was somehow more visible than Morgan So back him to start next week. And Biggar dire though he is for the Saints or they are for him Good though Anscombe was does WG really trust him?

Referees dont do offside anymore

TheMildlyFranticLlama wrote:

123456789. wrote:I don't think Scotland were as bad as people are saying they were.

I think we were worse. Unbelievably naive and tactically wanting. We played more rugby off George Horne in the last 10 minutes than the previous 70. Jonny Gray's double movement was unacceptable from one of our more experienced players.

Well played Wales, by far the better side and could've played another 80 minutes without being worried about losing their defence was that impressive

It's a difficult one, in relative terms to the six nations performance it was much better without a lot of our best players. I'm no expert on Welsh rugby but it looked to me to be a better Wales team than the one we played then. I think we've reached a stage where we are so poor away from home that away matches must be viewed within that context. In the last 10 Six Nations Fixtures we've averaged 27.8 points better at home than away. Or in other words in our home matches we've won a grand slam fairly comfortably, in our away we've scraped 5th place. Our away scores are the same place that they've been for 20 years. If you view the game within that context i.e against a six nations opponent without arguably our two best players then we are going to struggle. That said viewed on its own the performance and the result were not up to scratch. There was a lack of creativity in attack and a softness in defence, again entirely characteristic of an away "six nations" performance over the last two years. My big worry is that without Russell and Hogg, Jones doesn't seem quite the same player, which is entirely reasonable. When you have players like Hogg, Russell and George Horne causing issues elsewhere there'll always be more space. What isn't reasonable are the defensive lapses that occur with a worrying regularity. I think there has to be some question marks over Price now as well. Horne seems the far better player, Laidlaw has the experience and the tactical advantage, Hidalgo-Clyne a hybrid of Laidlaw and Horne/Price. I think unless Price can pick up his form he's in real trouble for the world cup.

Home Away PD
Ireland +5 -20 25
England +12 -40 52
Wales +16 -27 33
Italy +29 +2 27
France +6 -6 12

The difference between this game and the 6N game was that the Wales side were much less attack oriented. Maybe due to more Scarlets players last time and them being in a rich vein of form. The likes of Shingler and Patchell working with their team mates really opened up Scotland in February. This time we barely attacked in the first half and preferred to kick a huge amount. The back row was a really defensive one. Even Tipuric, renowned for his attacking, is not the player he once was in that facet. It was perhaps the first game in a couple of years where we didn’t see any trademark snipes from Gareth Davies. He’s a prolific try scorer but didn’t look to make any of his breaks from the base of the ruck.

Sure, this wasn’t Scotland at their best. But it was nowhere near Wales at their best either.

Trying to put a positive spin on things, despite really not playing well we were milimeters away from scoring twice late on which would have put us right back in the game. Indeed if the Horne try had stood we would have been within 4 points, 8 minutes to go and a man advantage - would have been an interesting finale.

As the old cliche goes though you have to earn your luck at this level and we just weren't on our game at all yesterday.

As an aside does anyone else think that the rule to give a penalty for double movement when trying to score is
 incredibly harsh and not really within the spirit of the game? Given that we want to see teams attack and tries being scored it doesn't seem right for it to be such a game changer, especially when in the heat of battle it is often the natural thing for s player to do when they're close to the line. Just a thought!

Wales Punish Blundering Scotland

Headline from Sunday Times - fair or harsh?

LondonTiger wrote:Wales Punish Blundering Scotland

Headline from Sunday Times - fair or harsh?

Fair I think although had we scored in the 2nd half when we were camped in the 22 for a long period of time then maybe not.