It was the legendary football manager Jock Stein who once opined that it is important to win a match but what is even more important is the manner in which you win.
That quote came to my mind at the end of Saturday’s colossal game at Twickenham when it seemed that all of Scotland was rejoicing at the win over England. To me it was not just that we had beaten England, but we had done so by playing the better rugby, some of it quite sensational - I expect we’ll be watching Duhan van der Merwe’s first try for decades, though the other tries were pretty nifty, too.
It wasn’t just that we won by playing so well, it was the fact that Scotland were missing key players like Hamish Watson and Darcy Graham, yet still triumphed – proof that the policy of creating strength in depth is working.
As I had suggested, England’s squad selection was just plain wrong and it will be interesting to see if Steve Borthwick can admit his mistakes and recall Jonny May at least to the squad.
I remind you that Gregor Townsend is the current head coach with the longest continuous service for a Tier One nation, and his experience showed in the way he set up the team and the tactics they followed. England concentrated too much on one man and Finn Russell still managed to outfox them at times, while our front five faced up to England like never before. It helped that Mario Itoje had a shocker by his standards and England’s inexperienced players were taken to school by Scotland.
To me the game was won and lost in the back row tussle. As I predicted last week, captain Jamie Ritchie was inspirational, and Matt Fagerson and Luke Crosbie joined him in tackling their opposition to bits – the official stats had the trio missing just one tackle in the whole match. You could not say that the Scottish pack entirely dominated the game, but they were the better side in the set-pieces and with Richie Gray back to his rampaging best in the loose, it was lovely stuff to watch.
Now for Wales, and I have but a few words of caution for Gregor Townsend and the squad – same as I wrote last year, beware the wounded dragons. Just when you think Wales are fading away to nothing, that’s when the men in scarlet pounce. The point is that Scotland know this now, and will surely be ready for the Welsh challenge.
Scotland’s men’s national team has had too many false dawns in the past for me to be entirely confident of victory over Wales at Murrayfield on Saturday but there is something different about this current squad – they are just more professional all round, committed, skilful and ready to attack from anywhere. For once I am prepared to say, as I did last week, that Scotland can and should be victorious on Saturday. Overall we have the better players on current form, and while I know their head coach Warren Gatland has the Indian sign on Scotland, I don’t think he can outthink Townsend while he has a big dilemma – does he continue with his tried and tested veterans or go for youth just eight months from the World Cup?
The World Rugby rankings say it all, really. In the latest edition published on Monday, Scotland leapfrogged England and went up to fifth in the rankings, equalling their best ever rating set back in 2018, while Wales are stuck in ninth position. What I like about the rankings is that they are a dispassionate assessment based on current form, and Scotland do deserve to be four places ahead of Wales, but what I dislike about them is that they do not take into account the history of teams, especially the history of matches between nations going back for decades.
On historical precedent you would have to say Wales have the edge on Saturdays. You have to go back to the 1920s for Scotland’s best run against Wales – seven wins and a draw in eight seasons – while Wales’ longest winning streak of nine-in-a-row was set between 2008 and 2016. They have also put the hoodoo on us in the last two Championships which Scotland started by beating England only to lose to Wales in the second round of matches.
Wales edged it by a single point in 2021 at Murrayfield and there were only three points in it last year in Cardiff. There is a difference this year, however, and that is the fact that as well as playing in front of a home crowd, I don’t think Scotland took as much out of themselves at Twickenham on Saturday as they did against England in 2021 and 2022.
I think the Scots will shade it, as long as they keep their discipline as they did against England.
