Jamie Ritchie acknowledged last night that his Scotland side have fallen some way short of perfection in each of their four World Cup warm-up games, but insisted they were building towards the sort of all-round excellence that will be required if they are to beat the Springboks in their opening match in the tournament a fortnight today.
Ritchie’s team took a while to get to grips with the precise nature of the Georgian challenge at Murrayfield yesterday, and for the fourth time in as many games were behind at the break. But a 6-0 deficit became a 33-6 victory thanks to five second-half tries, allowing the captain to reflect with some satisfaction on what he views as an improving sequence of games.
“I feel we’ve built well,” Ritchie said. “We’ve not had a perfect performance yet, but for me that’s a positive thing, because we know there’s one coming.
“I’m glad we had a little bit of a tough test in that first half. We had to manage ourselves through that and then we stepped up in the second.
“I think we’ve shown that we can play really well. We’ve shown that we can come back from adversity, which I think is a really positive thing, and we’ve played some really good rugby.
“We’ve shown how we’ve grown over this period in terms of how we’ve wanted to build when we’ve had this extended period of time together, and we’re really clear on how we want to play.
“It’s not been perfect, but we’ve had more positive results and positive performances than not and we’re really excited for the first game.”
Like his captain, head coach Gregor Townsend was also able to reflect positively on his team’s recovery in the second half. And, while accepting that the Springboks match will constitute an altogether higher degree of difficulty, he insisted that Scotland would feel the benefit of some of the positive aspects of their play against Georgia.
“I believe it was probably better for us going six points down, because it meant we had to improve certain areas,” he said. “Our fitness would have to come through and it did, and our bench, who must have guessed that they would have an early introduction, did really well too.
“We know also that playing against South Africa is a different game, but they [Georgia] didn’t score a try. So that was a pleasing aspect too.
“But we’re still working for that performance we can be happy with over the 80 minutes. It is never going to be the complete performance, because the opposition are going to have their moments.
“[The summer series] has been really enjoyable. Working with the group for a longer period and seeing how well they’re training and seeing the collaboration and connection has been really enjoyable, but that’s obviously not what we’re here for. We’re here for the players playing close to their potential and winning for Scotland, and we got very close to having four wins and close to playing some rugby which excites our supporters and is a real threat to any team we are up against – but we know we still have improvements to make.
“Georgia are a very good team. They’ve beaten Wales and Italy, and they are outstanding in that contact area, whether it is an attack or competing for ball, so we have to give them credit too. But we know that certain aspects will have to improve, and at least we saw that improvement in the second half, which was pleasing.
As well as being happy to see his side sign off with a win, Townsend was pleased to report there were no new injuries. And winger Darcy Graham - who had to pull out of the Georgia match with a thigh strain and was replaced by Kyle Steyn - should have recovered in plenty of time to be considered for selection against the South Africans. “There’s a couple of what you might call normal Test-match niggles, nothing more serious than that, which is great,” the coach continued.
“I’m really pleased that Kyle got through today’s game, because he actually was one that went off injured on Tuesday – along with Darcy – but recovered well enough to train Thursday. He got a whack on his knee, too, but it looks like that’s fine.
“I’m sure it wasn’t in the front of players’ minds, but they will have seen last night and a couple of injuries in that New Zealand v South Africa game, and a couple of players in the England squad getting injured last week, so it is a tricky fixture.
“Jamie cracked his cheekbone the last time we played Georgia, so to get through that with the second-half performance and no injuries is a massive positive.
“We’re training this week Tuesday to Thursday, and then the guys are going to have Friday and Saturday off, so we’re aiming for Thursday with Darcy. If he’s not able to train Thursday, it will be the following Monday in France.”
