SCOTLAND got their Rugby World Cup campaign off to a flying start yesterday with a 45-10 victory over Japan in which they scored five tries and earned five points to go to the top of the Pool B table. True to character, Vern Cotter refused to be carried away by the result, but was particularly pleased by the bonus point that took them ahead of the Japanese and Samoa.
“I wouldn’t say it was convincing,” the head coach said of the win, in which his team pulled away strongly in the second half after being 12-7 ahead at half-time. “I think we managed to score points in the second half.
“I thought we traded blows in the first half. They could have scored a couple of times. Second half we managed to get over the try line to give us a bonus point, which we’re very, very happy with.
“We’re happy. Very happy to get the win, happy to be able to pull away in second half, happy to get started. Watching everyone else play has been nerve-wracking for players. Especially watching Japan beat South Africa, there were a few nerves at the start.”
Greig Laidlaw, who got 20 points on his own club’s ground and was named man of the match, said he had been confident by the break that Scotland had got the better of Japan. ‘I did feel they were tiring,” he said. “I felt we had them at half-time, to be honest. Credit to them for holding out. They were starting to blow and we were putting them under pressure.
“The message from Vern was don’t panic, hold the ball, we had them fitness wise. This is the fittest Scotland team I’ve seen for a long, long time. We believe we’re in a good place, fitness wise.”
John Hardie needed stitches to a cut in his right ear, but otherwise Scotland appeared to emerge from the game with a clean bill of health. With their next game, against the United States in Leeds, coming up on Sunday, the availability of all 31 members of his squad is another significant plus for Cotter.
Eddie Jones, the Japan coach, had claimed on the eve of the game that his own team were fitter. The evidence from the second half was all to the contrary, but he insisted that Scotland had simply been better.
“At half-time I thought we had a realistic chance of winning the game,” he said. “It was a game of one team taking their opportunities, the other team losing it. I thought they played really well. They were too good for us today.
“We’re a fit team. We didn’t run them in the second half, but I thought we did pretty well. We were just not good enough.”
Asked if the four-day turnaround from their victory over South Africa had had any effect, Jones insisted he would not consider it as a factor. “I said we wouldn’t use it as an excuse, and we won’t,” he added. “Scotland were too good for us - they scored 33 points in the second half.
“In saying that, there were times we felt we had them, but their recovery in defence was excellent. They worked hard off the ball and will be pleased with that performance.”
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