Scotland World Cup buildup

First topic message reminder :

Scotland v Italy
Saturday 29 July

Scotland v France
Saturday 5 August

France v Scotland
Saturday 12 August

Scotland v Georgia
Saturday 26 August

I think it's only fair to start another thread for this topic because I can see it being a popular topic in terms of discussion .

First things first is that 3 wins from 5 and a 3rd place finish probably exceeded expectations because most would have said 2 wins and the 4th place win, the one that most would have called was England to beat us as they were at home so imho we certainly deserve enormous credit for that one because we played very well against an England team that also had their moments, in fact I could already see improvements from the Eddie Jones era during that game and until DVDM clinched it at the death, I was still pretty worried we wouldn't win so was understandably over the moon that we did win.

The Wales and Italy matches were mixed bags tbh but we did get 5pts from both which was crucial, the Welsh game we didn't really perform first half and were in fact fortunate to go in at half time ahead but second half we were excellent and deserved the bonus point win.  The Italy game was a mixed bag in terms of; we had patches where we did well and others where we were hanging on, such as the last 2mins, I also felt that in that game our top centre pairing of Huwipulotu were quiet in attack though DVDM was a bit more involved that he had been in the previous few weeks before.

The France game was bloody frustrating because we showed glimpses of how well we can play especially in the second half for large parts but we were guilty of missing key opportunities and indiscipline from the captain of all people was our undoing which is where the frustration comes because as fans, we expect our captain to know what the ref will tolerate in terms of backchat!

The Ireland game was a game of 2 halfs, in the first half we were going toe to toe with them, it was probably the best we've played against them in a very long time; second half was a completely different story, we basically just capitalutated and handed the game to them with basic errors and more stupid indiscipline.

In terms of the coach, I have made my feelings known and really hope that the situation is resolved by at least mid to late April as we really need clarity on the situation!

Finally, for the summer warm up matches I'd like to see fringe players like Cameron Henderson, Ben Healy, Stafford McDowall, Kyle Rowe and Ollie Smith get some game time to see what they can offer either at the world cup (unlikely) or next 6N in 2024 .

That try in the first half... Darcy definitely will be having nightmares

Signed our own death warrant by butchering our try opportunity and then having a lineout as impotant as a microwaved pickle

Just stuff of nightmares. The two teams Scotland fans hate watching our team play the most both in our pool. It's going to be a long group stage...

This is so frustrating, set pieces are killing us

TheMildlyFranticLlama wrote:This is so frustrating, set pieces are killing us

It’s Poopie being Scottish

We’ve been dragged into an arm wrestle with South Africa. Stupid thing to allow to happen

I think it's just SA dominance. Our backs are having to go in to protect the ball in rucks. Kind of sums up the game really.

Ireland will be watching this saying "Same again in a few weeks lads?" :Picard:

Which rugby god did we pi5s off???

I mean the draw is honking but we just do not get the rub from refs. That ball came off a SA player who was running back from offside. Should be a penalty to Scotland but Angus gives SA a scrum!!!

PS, Ali price is still dugsh!te

Depressing second half

We started the game poorly and got away with it somewhat but starting the second half poorly ended up killing us.

The starting poorly...is that the coaches failing to prepare the players correctly?

The other part is the subs need to come on earlier. I understand wanting to keep guys on as long as possible but in hot conditions against SA? What was the whole point of Kinghorn at 10 if we are not going to use a 6:2 bench against the most physical sides?

Our line out has been embarrassing, how many times did we fail to get anyone up in the air?!

Good win for South Africa, showing how tough they will be to beat at this World Cup. Strong defence, dominant work at the breakdown and very good kicking.

Scotland struggled to get a foothold in the game because of it, and their numerous errors (particularly at the line-out) didn't help. They do have reason to feel aggrieved, of course, at the inept officiating.

Shame - bit of an anticlimax to what I expected to be a cracker ... not helped by the officials

Think SA will go to number 1 in the world with that win! No BP though

I shall refrain from criticising anyone in a blue Jersey. They gave it their all but were probably 2 or 3 % behind the boks.
Could be worse ...we could be Kiwis.

jimbopip wrote:I shall refrain from criticising anyone in a blue Jersey. They gave it their all but were probably 2 or 3 % behind the boks.
Could be worse ...we could be Kiwis.

It wasnt a bad performance from Scotland to be fair. Didnt get much luck.

Scotland and getting d!icked over by World Cup refs, name a more iconic duo.

Not that I’m suggesting we’d have won had the head contact been reffed correctly, we probably still wouldn’t have. SA were much better, immense physicality and their defensive line was ridiculously solid. You can’t hope to beat a side like SA if you don’t have a functioning set piece, lots to work on

All feels a bit familiar and quite a let down actually. Real shame but all credit to SA who were much better.

Ireland will have been watching and will have a pretty good idea of what to do. It sucks to say it so early in the tournament but I don’t think Scotland have to game to beat these big physical sides.

Went according to form… their rush defence shut Russell down.

On another day Kriel gets red, George Turner hits a cows arse with a banjo, and Darcy passes…

Don’t get many chances against the best sides and we didn’t take them.

Kriel will get cited and miss the Ireland game now

Good game, thought the kicking in this match was more effective than most matches on the weekend.

South Africa has two major issues to work on. Execution and goal kicking

There were far too many unforced errors at crucial times for Scotland. Discipline wasn’t bad, just bad in crucial areas. We did not look after the ball that we got and had no answer to the rush defence of SA. Personally I don’t understand why teams don’t t use a chip kick to slow the rush down and get some space to play in.
The line out was a disaster. I didn’t realise we had lost 6 in SA 22 until Barclay said so in summary. That is inexcusable especially when we have someone the stature of Gray in the team.

Personally I don’t understand why teams don’t t use a chip kick to slow the rush down and get some space to play in.

Russell often does but I think they had that covered as well. also we had so little ball not wanting to kick it away ?

TheMildlyFranticLlama wrote:Our line out has been embarrassing, how many times did we fail to get anyone up in the air?!

Playing against the Boks lineout with 3 very good jumpers is so hard. It forces teams to throw long or cut numbers. Throwing long is high risk, high reward. If you land the throw it can offer a fantastic platform but it's easy to c**k up. Whereas cutting numbers massively limits the potential platform but improves the chance of retention.

I used to do keep stats and do some analysis, largely on the lineout. The area that 3 genuine jumpers really changes your lineout is in defence rather than attack. The difference between a back row lineout option such as PSdT and one such as Ritchie isn't actually that big in attack. In defence having a 3rd genuine jumper that can pressure the oppositions primary options is huge though. Plus most strong lineout jumpers are naturally strong defensive maulers as well.

It's the ridiculous strength that the Boks second rows and PsDT offer. They have 4 locks who are world class lineout jumpers and fantastic around the park. Then they have PsDT who is a world class blindside that's as strong a jumper as many locks. Then Mostert can cover blindside extremely well if PsDT is injured. Their 4-6 options are obscene in that regard.

Whereas if most sides want 2 lineout options that strong they might be sacrificing some bulk in the engine room to get their best two jumpers in. Let alone getting 3 of them in.

Seems to be a lot of noise about Kriel head contact. I missed it during the match but that is really just down to the officials to sort out if it was supposed to have been picked up. It’s getting to the point where we’ll need ref debriefs for fans so we can avoid the constant bickering on social media about cards and head contact. I’m straying away from it all now, the post match commentary should be about the rugby rather than the possible foul play.

I really hope Ben Whitehouse stubs his toe on his way to the shower tomorrow morning.

In this day and age where boys can identify as girls and grow adults can identify as a cheese grater, can i identify as a Fijian? My pasty whiter than Casper the ghost complexion shouldn’t be a barrier to my own internal happiness???

Maybe Whitehouse had nipped out of his room for a pee?.
Otherwise I fail to see how anyone watching the game live wouldn't have at least seen what looked like a head contact in the tackle and have checked it
Sloppy work from a sloppy official, so no great surprise that he missed it.

[quote="bsando"]Seems to be a lot of noise about Kriel head contact. I missed it during the match but that is really just down to the officials to sort out if it was supposed to have been picked up. It’s getting to the point where we’ll need ref debriefs for fans so we can avoid the constant bickering on social media about cards and head contact. I’m straying away from it all now, the post match commentary should be about the rugby rather than the possible foul play.[/quote]


As an England fan can I just say good luck with that,

Well, feck.

We've been talking for a long time now about whether Scotland have learnt their lessons on how to beat a team like SA. Given we lost 6 lineouts in the opposition 22, that suggests a big no.

SA are just so good though, and have relentless power and suffocating defence.

We knew it would be a longshot to beat SA, it's just frustrating that we didn't give the best account of ourselves in trying.

Scotland didn't fire a shot

Ireland are now over 100 points to the good

Which means they blew the only chance they had . They are already out

The tactics at the line-out guaranteed failure

What an amateurish plan

Pathetic

alive555 wrote:Scotland didn't fire a shot

Ireland are now over 100 points to the good

Which means they blew the only chance they had . They are already out

The tactics at the line-out guaranteed failure

What an amateurish plan

Pathetic

That's what's most disappointing, and again is the similarity in previous games against the big boys. I'd much rather have gone down swinging like Fiji!

It really is a weird feeling being a Scottish fan - we were long shots to win this but were still disappointed when we didn't!

It was overall a deflating experience. Yes the we didn't get the rub of the green but ultimately the SA defence (in terms of it's accuracy and physicality) meant that we couldn't generate any quick ball or any pressure. We compounded that with a truly parlous display at the line-out which exacerbated our problems with building pressure.

First 20 mins of the second half our scrum fell apart and that was the game. There were periods where the more phases of play we had the more territory we lost - again kudo to the SA defensive system.

Fin has taken some flack but given what he was being provided I don't think there was much he could have done different. Ultimately we lost to a bigger, stronger team and that has to ring alarm bells for the Ireland game.

I thought Finn put in a real leaders performance and probably saved us a couple of tries through his last ditch tackles. Breaking down a team's defense shouldn't be down to one player and it's definitely shown that we put huge reliance on Finn to do something.

Time to get a french shirt? It sucks having had this two world cups in a row. Our only chance is if SA wallop Ireland and we beat Ireland with no LBPs and put a cricket score on Romania.

I think the last of our quarter finals days have passed though, looking at the U20s this will just be status quo now sadly and we'll end up like Scotland's round ball team.

Glad I couldn't watch it and I'm not going to now.

Tom English's report on the BBC again is accurate. A combination of our own errors (and there really is no excuse for that - these are all test players) and the Bok blitz suffocating options with any ball that we did have. The pack were so focused on scrapping and not looking like they were intimidated that they forgot to play rugby.

It would probably have been better if we had Ireland next - that way we might have been able to use the energy of angrily reacting to effectively being neutered. Now we'll sweep the next two teams and probably become unstuck against the paddies.

Feels like a huge step backwards. However, as England showed this week, that needn't be the case.

George Carlin wrote:Glad I couldn't watch it and I'm not going to now.

Tom English's report on the BBC again is accurate. A combination of our own errors (and there really is no excuse for that - these are all test players) and the Bok blitz suffocating options with any ball that we did have. The pack were so focused on scrapping and not looking like they were intimidated that they forgot to play rugby.

It would probably have been better if we had Ireland next - that way we might have been able to use the energy of angrily reacting to effectively being neutered. Now we'll sweep the next two teams and probably become unstuck against the paddies.

Feels like a huge step backwards. However, as England showed this week, that needn't be the case.

A lot of Scottish errors (specifically Finn Russell) came down to pressure, Russell tried his best, but wasn't really afforded much space and time. At times the passing from Scotland were frantic under the rush defence. Boks closed the space wide very effectively.

Finn had a few errors, but it's the classic thing where a fly-half gets the flack when the forwards are being monstered behind the gainline and losing every line out in the attacking 22.

I thought that was a hugely disappointing performance, especially given the feel good factor from the the warm ups and the mood music coming out of the camp....didn't fire a shot and compounded error on error. To have a line-out that bad, even against the Boks, is just not acceptable.

I think first off, we were beaten by the better team (current world champions being a good team shocker!!).  Even if the red card had been picked up, I’m not convinced that it would have changed the outcome, we might not have lost by quite as much, but I don’t think we would have walked away with the win, so congratulations to South Africa.

For me though I don’t think Scotland played well at all.  Credit again has to go to South Africa for the pressure they put the Scottish lads under, as this really prevented us from playing, but at the same time, we should have looked to adapt our game to realise that Finn getting constantly smashed as soon as he got the ball, wasn’t really going to get us very far.  I know Finn likes to play on the line, but if he dropped back a bit, it could have given even half a second more time to utilize his kicking game for example.  Or had we ran that setup where Finn calls for the ball but leaves it for Tiupolutu and he runs behind him, which would have given Finn more time on the ball as well.  Instead, we just played the same way and when it didn’t work, we tried it again and again.

Johnnie Beattie was on the radio comms and pointed out that generally South Africa don’t target the front of lineouts.  Which again might have been worth trying if throwing to the middle/back was going to pot, but just like in the 6n against Ireland, we didn’t try the easier option, when the complicated one was failing miserably.

It was the rigidity in everything we did, that was the most frustrating.  It was clear what we were trying wasn’t working, we barely got out of our own half in the first half.  At half time we were still in the game, but it wasn’t because of anything we had done in an attacking sense.  This is where we let ourselves down, time and again.  Good teams adapt, whereas we just keep on keeping on, even when it’s clear that’s not working.  We did it against Ireland in the 6n (sorry to reference it twice) and we did it again against SA.

Unless we start learning from this, we will continue to be behind the top teams in the world.  We largely have the talent; we just don’t have the game intelligence to adapt when things aren’t working.

With all that said, South Africa are an incredibly talented side, they combine sheer power with commitment and ability.  They also have the oldest average age at this world cup, so they have a bunch of lads who have been through this before and know what they need to do to win.  They also have the signal master in the box with his array of lights to help them out   .  I think they will give everyone they meet a hell of a game, and being realistic Scotland aren’t at the same level as a team who have to be amongst the favorites to reach the final if not win the whole thing.

The most annoying thing about referees like Angus Gardner and his Welsh TMO missing the possible red card offense by Kriel is that it really is of no benefit to Scotland if they review it after the game and determine that it should have been a red and give him a ban post event. Not only is it no benefit it may even work against Scotland if SA has players banned against Scotland's other opponents given Scotland's best chance of qualification is probably if SA beats Ireland too. It really was quite weak from Gardner and Co.

I agree spoons and I think on the lineouts Toonie even said these things happen in a match and it’s a matter of millimetres. Well I’m not so sure many other coaches would be as forgiving for something like that. The lineout has been a complaint of ours on here for sometime and it was a shame to see it malfunction during Scotlands biggest game of the World Cup.

Can only echo the sentiments expressed on here regarding scotlands performance.

Maybe 1 shot fired in attack scuppered by Darcy holding on to it.

Lineout under not much pressure disintegrated.

Scrum was actually a positive.

Quick note on the Kriel incident - Kriel put himself in that position because of South Africas determination to hit maximum line speed to cut off Scotlands wide attack. Saracens employ a similar defence and while tackles are missed more often, as long as the eventual final tackle is behind the gainline its deemed a success. This defence encourages fast linespeed, as such a fallout of it is tackles are often reckless and/or dangerous. Its not about body position or chopping, its about getting in the oppositions face to push them inside, make them hesitate or slow them down.

Referees should be wise to this and when aggressive linespeed like this is employed they should be actively looking for dangerous play. How the TMO and the ref missed it considering the ricochet is unreal. Now, we didnt hear anything, if anything, Ritchie said to Gardner but if I was Dempsey I would be hitting the deck holding my head. Aye thats playing it up but it needs attention drawn to it. Even if it only results in a penalty or a yellow the Bok linespeed would have been slowed down for the rest of the match and Scotland would have found more space with a slightly more hesitant defence. As it stands the boks got away with it. Thats not to say the Boks weren't better in every facet of play - they were - but their defensive strategy brought an element of risk both to the safety of the opposition and the potential to incur a card.

Boks were better and are world champs for a reason. No harm in losing to them, just a shame Scotland couldn't bring a bit more to the game.

PSDT was immense at closing the space outside Russel when he was rushing up in defense.

On a positive note the Scotland shirts may actually be affordable now!

We were beaten by the better team, no doubt but that missed red was very costly. The boks wouldn’t have been as fast out the blocks in defence of they were a man down and a man down at that for flying out the blocks in defence.

Would have been a very big factor in the game.

Not as big as the many odd reffing decisions for and against Fiji. That stuff was just bonkers.

Afraid to say that lack of BP means we’re out the cup now. I’m saying this as I don’t think we’ll beat Ireland. If we do it’ll be a nice surprise like we’re used to. The whole “belief” thing just didn’t sit well at all

tigertattie wrote:We were beaten by the better team, no doubt but that missed red was very costly. The boks wouldn’t have been as fast out the blocks in defence of they were a man down and a man down at that for flying out the blocks in defence.

Would have been a very big factor in the game.

Not as big as the many odd reffing decisions for and against Fiji. That stuff was just bonkers.

Afraid to say that lack of BP means we’re out the cup now. I’m saying this as I don’t think we’ll beat Ireland. If we do it’ll be a nice surprise like we’re used to. The whole “belief” thing just didn’t sit well at all

I would say there might be a surprise but I don't think this is a world cup for surprises. It's played almost exactly to predictions so far. 2015 was an anomaly I think.

The only team I can see stopping SA is our friends over the Irish sea, and maybe our mad Gallic cousins on the continent. Hard to see beyond a SA procession to a second trophy on the trot though.

Oakdene wrote:PSDT was immense at closing the space outside Russel when he was rushing up in defense.

Against Ireland you'll have JVDF doing a similar job.

Your boys were good value throughout the match but I've said it from square one, I can't see past the Saffers doing two in a row, I can't see us getting one over them either so it could well be a fight to the death between us (IRE) and you lot. Not something I relish.

Pete330v2 wrote:

Oakdene wrote:PSDT was immense at closing the space outside Russel when he was rushing up in defense.

Against Ireland you'll have JVDF doing a similar job.

Your boys were good value throughout the match but I've said it from square one, I can't see past the Saffers doing two in a row, I can't see us getting one over them either so it could well be a fight to the death between us (IRE) and you lot. Not something I relish.

I think Ireland will beat SA. Stuart Hogg said in a recent interview for TNT sports that for the last ten games he had been involved with against Ireland they reviewed the Irish team in depth before the game and yet come game time they played very different every time, with different trick plays in every game making them very difficult to stop. Ireland will have some tricks up their sleeve for SA and Scotland and I think they will win them both.

Pete330v2 wrote:

Oakdene wrote:PSDT was immense at closing the space outside Russel when he was rushing up in defense.

Against Ireland you'll have JVDF doing a similar job.

Your boys were good value throughout the match but I've said it from square one, I can't see past the Saffers doing two in a row, I can't see us getting one over them either so it could well be a fight to the death between us (IRE) and you lot. Not something I relish.

On the basis of last night, I don't think you have much to worry about - yes the Boks were awesome in defence, but we continually shot ourselves in the foot with error after error - the longer I think about it the poorer I think we played.

Interestingly, after last night Rambo may very well be first choice hooker in the squad.

jimbopip wrote:Interestingly, after last night Rambo may very well be first choice hooker in the squad.

He’s not in their squad though. He’s currently on holiday in France but that’s it. Doesn’t the team doc need to sign off an injury to a player to allow a new call up to come in?

Time to call meatball. The hero we need not the hero we deserve.