Scotland vs Italy 6 nations. Sat 2nd Feb

First topic message reminder :

Scotland Vs Italy

Location: BT Murrayfield

KO: 14.15

TV: BBC(I think)

Last time out:
Italy 27 - 29 Scotland

Head to Head
Played:  19
Sco wins: 12
Italy wins: 7

Chris Harris for the Lions.

Massively surprised he didn't baws that over the line there.

Harris didn't drop it!

Italy’s place in this tournament must truly be in question now. It’s not helping them or anyone else having such one sided games.

BigGee wrote:Who said Chris Harris was sh~t

GeordieFalcon

And he knows his stuff

How was that a penalty? He was the only Scot on there

Discipline will need to vastly improve when we take on ireland next week

Gary Graham finally gets his Scotland cap

That was harsh as well, Hoggy deserved that

Really disappointing to lose that try. Odd to say as we're so far in front but we need to improve enormously if we want to avoid fifth place in the tournament this year.

The ref has now decided to give Italy everything.

Completely switched off now. Really not good enough.

Now this is getting a bit silly

Easing off is fine, but this is nonsense

My god this is awful now.

It’s this type of crap where people can legitimately say we’re delusional when we start saying we’re equal to Wales and England

Blair Kinghorn MoM, can't really argue with that

BigGee wrote:Blair Kinghorn MoM, can't really argue with that

Nope. Take him out of the game and we’d have lost that game

Utterly bonkers

Can't really say our bench made much impact can we?

Still we would have taken that before the game, BP win to kick us off. The real competition starts next weekend though

Job done but that performance was unacceptable. We need to be significantly better.

tigertattie wrote:

BigGee wrote:Blair Kinghorn MoM, can't really argue with that

Nope. Take him out of the game and we’d have lost that game

Utterly bonkers

That is nonsense, we were totally dominant until the last 10 mins when the game was won and we switched off. At the end of the day it was a BP win and we take it and move on. The first games of the 6N are always edgy and we managed it well enough

Very good first 55 mins from Scotland - then totally switched off and stopped playing.  Subs really disrupted us.  I am certain there would not have been so many subs at once if we hadn't had a good lead and once again we see why we need Laidlaw for all his faults - he is the general on the feild.  Its no coincidence we lost our shape when he went off.

Hogg looked very sharp, Johnson a good game, Kinghorn a total menace, Ritchie did well and can i possibly say it and mean it?  Wilson had a very good game.

Well it'll be interesting to watch the Ireland game later. Unless we get a few key players back to the bench at least then we could be in trouble. Positives were that Sam Johnson played well, Russell looked sharp as did Hogg, Greig is once again proving his worth, and Harris didn't balls up!

Things to improve, defence, finishing and discipline.

Trust Scotland to score 5 tries and still have me feeling nauseous at the end of the game.

At the end of the day we have a very big game against Ireland next weekend, so we were always going to pull the playmakers once the game was won.

There will be quite a few changes to the team next weekend in any case but not many off the bench enhanced their cases.

BigGee wrote:

tigertattie wrote:

BigGee wrote:Blair Kinghorn MoM, can't really argue with that

Nope. Take him out of the game and we’d have lost that game

Utterly bonkers

That is nonsense, we were totally dominant until the last 10 mins when the game was won and we switched off. At the end of the day it was a BP win and we take it and move on. The first games of the 6N are always edgy and we managed it well enough

The lad had a good game and there's more to come from him but I'm pretty sure Sean Maitland, Darcy Graham, Lee Jones, Rory Hughes, Damian Hoyland, Jamie Farndale, Robbie Nairn and even Dougie Fife are capable of scoring a couple of walk ins.

What gives me a lot of comfort is that if you add Watson and Barclay to that starting pack, it’s actually very good.

Scottrf wrote:5 Nations please.

If any of the nation's lost their star player from last year, good back rower, and lose your scrum half right before kick off most of the teams would struggle as well.  They don't have the strenght in depth but are improving as a team just a pity that only France has not improved massively in the last 3 years. The other 4 are vastly improved. Italy are also an 80 min team now aswell

Yes Italy's defence struggled a little but they did well.  This is the same team that put 50 on Fiji.

Underage Italy are holding their own.  They are doing the Scottish model of building their team around young players and Treviso.

George Carlin wrote:Trust Scotland to score 5 tries and still have me feeling nauseous at the end of the game.

 Its the lot of the scotland fan!

Well done Scotland! BP win in the first game. Can’t ask for any more.

What worries me is that one of those options is sat in the beeb studio, the other was probably in the crowd

Brendan wrote:

Scottrf wrote:5 Nations please.

If any of the nation's lost their star player from last year, good back rower, and lose your scrum half right before kick off most of the teams would struggle as well.  They don't have the strenght in depth but are improving as a team just a pity that only France has not improved massively in the last 3 years. The other 4 are vastly improved.  Italy are also an 80 min team now aswell

Yes Italy's defence struggled a little but they did well.  This is the same team that put 50 on Fiji.

Underage Italy are holding their own.  They are doing the Scottish model of building their team around young players and Treviso.

I agree, O'Shea is keeping the team competitive while working to improve Italy rugby long term from the bottom up.

Well done Scotland, back three looked good.

Hoping as Russel played well that he will be Ireland's star man next week. Can't think of anything he did wrong, France seems to have brought a bit of order to his game but he is improving

Eejit wrote:

Brendan wrote:

Scottrf wrote:5 Nations please.

If any of the nation's lost their star player from last year, good back rower, and lose your scrum half right before kick off most of the teams would struggle as well.  They don't have the strenght in depth but are improving as a team just a pity that only France has not improved massively in the last 3 years. The other 4 are vastly improved.  Italy are also an 80 min team now aswell

Yes Italy's defence struggled a little but they did well.  This is the same team that put 50 on Fiji.

Underage Italy are holding their own.  They are doing the Scottish model of building their team around young players and Treviso.

I agree, O'Shea is keeping the team competitive while working to improve Italy rugby long term from the bottom up.

Agree, not sure when Iaone (How every you spell it) who is winger from Treviso qualifies. Him, Minozze in the back would be very good. They need to sort their pack to play more as a unit.

Some great moments from Scotland who stuck to the game plan very well, but shame to concede so many in the final 10. That’ll be good for the coaching staff to see where things went a bit wobbly and how to address that for future games.

Johnson was my MOM had Lingkorn not scored 3. He looked solid at 12, very few mistakes of any! That’s what we need!

Improvement isn’t enough after 2 decades, it’s not a development competition.

Italy will play better than that in this tournament.

It sounded like they had lots of problems in the build up to this game, with players being ill.

They can play for the full 80 mins now and that is encouraging. We will probably get a better idea of where they are at in the next couple of rounds.

The debut of Johnson was very assured, he looked very comfortable at this level. He may just have nailed the 12 jersey, which someone needed to.

Ritchie was very good as well, also looking increasingly assured as an international. Barclay is not going to walk straight back into his shirt.

A few of the maligned squad players did ok as well, Strauss and Wilson in particular certainly showed up for this one and were up for the battle. Seymour is not giving up his jersey anytime soon either. Darcy Graham may have to wait his turn.

Scottrf wrote:Improvement isn’t enough after 2 decades, it’s not a development competition.

They have beaten every team in it except England. They were as good as Scotland for 10+ of the 19 years. I guess if we went to 5 teams we would give an extra week to the Clubs, double win for some.

Italy are worth their place as they bring alot on and off the field. More should ave been done at the start to force them to get structures in place. 1/6 of the current pie is big than 1/5 of what would be left.

It's strange walking out of Murrayfield after a 5 try BP win in the 6N and feeling a bit deflated, but the huge drop of intensity was frustrating. 

Still, can't overly complain - we utterly dominated Italy and there was no doubt who was going to win. Some great tries and we left another 4 out there. 

Johnson looks good at 12 but he's got much sterner tests to come. Kinghorn surely can't be dropped if Maitland returns and Hogg looks beck at his best. Ritchie and the second rows put in huge shifts too.

On the downside Jones was quiet and the bench didn't add any impact at all, and has to take a lot of the blame for the ending. We were generally lacking intensity across the board - Murrayfield was very flat. If we have the same intensity against Ireland we'll be smashed.

Onwards and upwards though - plenty to build on but a BP in the bag.

Good match but the last ten minute leaked tries is something they wont have wanted the remaining sides to see. Another ten minutes they could have lost it based on the momentum of Italy. Next five games are all much tougher and they needed the fully 80 here. Subs or fitness...or injuries, non selections...they didnt need that. Those outsode tries wont come as easily either.

BigGee wrote:The debut of Johnson was very assured, he looked very comfortable at this level. He may just have nailed the 12 jersey, which someone needed to.

Ritchie was very good as well, also looking increasingly assured as an international. Barclay is not going to walk straight back into his shirt.

A few of the maligned squad players did ok as well, Strauss and Wilson in particular certainly showed up for this one and were up for the battle. Seymour is not giving up his jersey anytime soon either. Darcy Graham may have to wait his turn.

Agree. I'll say it once: Wilson had a strong game and kept his inner moron in check. Kinghorn was also excellent on the wing. Good thing I don't pick the side....

Thought Gilchrist was good too. Lots of graft.

That is two Wlison haters who have come out and praised him!

Maybe Toonie, Cotter, Rennie et al do indeed know something about rugby!

inner moron

?  Inner?

Tom English summed things up well for Scotland today.” The entire Scotland bench made a statement with their performances today, and that statement is “Don’t let me anywhere near the team!”

TJ wrote:Tom English summed things up well for Scotland today.” The entire Scotland bench made a statement with their performances today, and that statement is “Don’t let me anywhere near the team!”

Possibly a bit harsh on Josh Strauss, who certainly made some hard yards and Graham and Hastings did not really have much time on the pitch. Collectively however, they certainly did not up the tempo!

Looks like we’re going to be facing a pee’d off Irish team next week

tigertattie wrote:Looks like we’re going to be facing a pee’d off Irish team next week

Was just saying that - Ireland losing isn't good news for us next week.

tigertattie wrote:Looks like we’re going to be facing a pee’d off Irish team next week

A fairly battered one as well I would say, it has been a hell of a physical game, am awful lot of sore bodies I would say

What are people's views on the Hogg disallowed try? It was an incredible finish right in the corner I was sitting.

Townsend wasn't happy it was disallowed but I've not been able too see it on any highlights. All I could see at the time was one of our players being pushed and falling over.

So, Scotland currently top the table.

RDW wrote:What are people's views on the Hogg disallowed try? It was an incredible finish right in the corner I was sitting.

Townsend wasn't happy it was disallowed but I've not been able too see it on any highlights. All I could see at the time was one of our players being pushed and falling over.

It was a pretty marginal call I would say. Would have been a lot more narked about it, if it had had any impact on the result, which fortunately it did not.

Hoggy was on fire though, the whole game!