Rugby Six Nations Championship: Scotland 13 Wales 26WALES SUCCEEDED in the final quarter to make some sort of contest out of what had been a tediously one-sided encounter when they brought on five replacements at the same time and furnished the sin-bin with their breakdown expert, Martyn Williams.
Suddenly, Scotland managed to follow one attack with another, but after a weekend in which Ireland and France blazed with intent the champions’ credentials were not subjected to enough scrutiny to justify their billing as favourites.
Wales were adept at creating and exploiting space. Jamie Roberts took a wrecking ball to the midfield and the visitors had the pace and precision to take advantage of the room he created, but Wales will struggle to hold on to their title unless they sort out their lineout.
They lost the ball on their own throw three times in their own 25. Scotland lacked the wit to exploit the advantage, twice handing the ball back by conceding scrums and being shunted backwards, but if there was no serious challenger to Wales last season that does not look like repeating itself in the next seven weeks.
England may not pack ambition on their coach to Cardiff this week, but Wales’s defence will face a closer examination in Paris the following week and the softness of the try they conceded here will annoy and unsettle their coach Warren Gatland.
It may have come from a poor tackle by the wing Shane Williams, who injured his left leg in the process, but it was followed up by Lee Byrne dithering as the ball bounced in front of his own line and almost conceding a try to Chris Paterson that would have brought Scotland back to within six points with three minutes to go.
Wales were forced to resort to a few dirty tricks. If Williams’s sin-binning for a deliberate knock-on had been a mite harsh, John Yapp got away with tugging Chris Cusiter’s feet just before the scrumhalf passed from a ruck and James Hook evaded detection for hand-bagging Simon Taylor.
Last year, Wales never cracked under pressure, but there were times in the final minutes yesterday when they looked vulnerable.
Gatland admitted to over-confidence when he made a raft of replacements with his side 20 points to the good, saying that he wanted to save key players the effects of a heavy pitch with just a six-day turnaround before England.
The Scotland coach, Frank Hadden, admitted his side had been passive in the opening 30 minutes against a team he described as the best in the northern hemisphere, but it was only when the prop Geoff Cross had been sent to the sin-bin for taking out Lee Byrne in the air that Wales pulled away having dominated early on.
Cross was given a yellow card as he was helped on to a stretcher having almost knocked himself out.
While the Scots were a man short Wales scored two tries – Tom Shanklin taking the first after neat interplay between Shane Williams and Byrne, and Alun Wyn Jones surged over for the second after Scotland’s scrum had again been shoved off its own ball having been unable to cope with Gethin Jenkins even when up to a full complement.
The day had started badly for Wales when the captain Ryan Jones failed a fitness test. It left them without back row cover on the bench and the captaincy went to Martyn Williams, whose five previous matches with the armband on had all ended in defeat.
Williams virtually did enough on his own to end that dismal record. He dominated the breakdown, and while the sides enjoyed virtually the same amount of possession and made almost the same number of passes and tackles, the difference lay in the quality of their play.
Wales attacked with panache and skill and in Jenkins, Alun Wyn Jones and the captain had forwards with Lions tattooed on them. Scotland threw the ball around in hope – Hugo Southwell made a couple of clean breaks, but it was not until Max Evans came on that Wales’s defence had reason to be concerned.
The game had been won and lost by then and Scotland were fortunate that Stephen Jones missed four conversions out of four. The outside-half, who stood flat and injected pace into moves, kicked penalties at the beginning and end of the opening period, but it was the start of the second half that decided the game.
Robert’s break on 30 seconds created a try for Leigh Halfpenny and when Shane Williams crossed Scotland were out of it.
Evans gave the outnumbered and outshouted home crowd a reason to cheer, but the home side’s display was put in context when Martyn Williams said: “We will have to play a lot better to beat England on Saturday.”
SCOTLAND: Southwell; Webster (Paterson, 26), Cairns (M Evans, 53), Morrison, S Lamont; Godman, Blair (capt; Cusiter, 60); Jacobsen, Ford (Hall, 63), Cross (Dickinson, 32), White, Hamilton, Hogg (Brown, 76), Barclay (Gray, 58), Taylor. Sin-bin: Cross 22.
WALES: Byrne; Halfpenny, Shanklin, Roberts (Bishop, 66) S Williams (Davies, 74); S Jones (Hook,66), Phillips (Peel, 66); Jenkins (Yapp, 66), Rees (Bennett, 66), A Jones, Gough (Charteris, 66), AW Jones, D Jones, M Williams, Powell. Sin-bin: M Williams 70.
Referee: A Rolland (Ireland).
GuardianService
