Your rugby morning headlines for Sunday, February 13.
Fuming Scottish pundit slams performance
Scotland have been panned by a BBC journalist, who branded their performance in Cardiff 'putrid' and said they got what they deserved.
Gregor Townsend's side looked threatening at times in the first half but were completely stifled by a desperate Wales side in the second period.
Despite the scoreline being narrow, Wales always seemed to manage the big moments well and the victory burst Scottish optimism after their Calcutta Cup victory over England last week.
"Not good enough. Not good enough," Tom English said on BBC Scotland's Rugby Podcast.
"It was a litany of mistakes. Every kind of mistake in the book. They conceded eight penalties at the breakdown, 12 or 13 overall.
"Scotland never played. The scored one try, a great try, the one time they tried to play.
"In the second half, they were abject, they never ever tried to put a bit of width and ambition into the game.
"It was all Wales. Wales were pretty average and they deserved to win the game. No complaints at all but Wales were no great shakes.
"Scotland just did not turn up. Whatever game plan they were trying to play is beyond me. I'm quite angry at the performance because the Scotland team is better than that. That was a putrid performance.
"They never threatened, they never put pressure on on Wales. They tried these dopey kicks in the second half to try to play the game in Wales' half, they didn't have the accuracy to even do that much.
"Wales had more thunder about them. Scotland had nothing and we know this team has loads of attacking strengths but they delivered none of that tonight and got absolutely what they deserved.
"They [Wales] looked like a team that was desperate for victory. They had a rage to win, they were prepared to do whatever they could to win the game.
"Scotland were just an absolute shambles."
Biggar explains drop goal decision
Wales fly-half Dan Biggar is strangely getting some stick for slotting the drop goal that ultimately won the game at the Principality Stadium.
With Finn Russell in the sin bin, Biggar elected to clip over three points to edge Wales ahead 20-17 on the scoreboard and that was how things finished.
Some fans hoped Wales would look to go for the try, but with Scotland defending resolutely, it proved to be a sound decision.
Explaining things afterwards, Biggar said: "Yeah, it was probably just to edge ahead, take a free shot and get ahead.
"It proved to be the right decision in the end. What it enabled us to do was play without the ball.
"If you’re chasing the game, you can force something, give up a cheap turnover or a breakdown penalty.
"All of a sudden, you’re chasing the game again. It just enabled us to play a territory based game, rather than a possession based game.
"That suited us down to the ground in the last 10 minutes."
Hogg: We cost ourselves the game
Scotland captain Stuart Hogg believes his side threw the game away after losing 20-17 to Wales in Cardiff.
An enthralling encounter saw the encounter ebb and flow dramatically, with the score deadlocked 14-14 at the break.
The game was on a knife-edge throughout and Hogg was not in a rush to credit Wales after the match.
“We cost ourselves the game," he said. “We pretty much chucked it away. When we give away a penalty or a knock on that’s one thing but we compounded error on error.
“That’s when we get frustrated. That’s not a true reflection of where we are at.
“We killed ourselves in the last 20 minutes.”
He added: “We were ahead because we showed the true reflection of what we are about. We were running onto the ball, getting in behind the defence, and changing the point of contact.
“We were pretty much doing the simple things well which was very effective for us. It got us field positions and points, but unfortunately we didn’t back it up.
“Test match rugby is all about competing for the small moments. Every single moment we get in the game we need to make sure we are winning these little margins to put us in the right areas but unfortunately we didn’t back it up today."
England 'managing' internal conflict
England boss Eddie Jones has admitted he is 'always trying to manage conflict'.
They play Italy today, looking to get their Six Nations campaign back on track after an opening round defeat to Scotland at Murrayfield.
It's been a heated week in English rugby, with lots of stick flying around. The pressure is on.
"Players always have their views and I'm not saying they're wrong, but they tend to see things in an extreme way - the team's either really happy or unhappy," Jones said.
"From a coaching perspective, you're always bubbling along a fine line between doing well and not doing so well.
"I've seen winning teams with internal problems and I've seen losing teams that don't have any internal problems.
"It's something we're trying to manage all the time but the biggest driver of it is definitely the leadership of the team.
"At the moment, it's a bit like a revolving door. We're down to our third-choice captain.
"That cohesion of the team is evolving in the right way but it only takes one bad apple to come in or for a couple of bad things to happen for that to change, so we're always trying to manage that conflict."
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