As the fog of sporting battle clears and the blood cools Vern Cotter and his management team must get to work on proper analysis of Scotland’s failure to achieve the ludicrous strategic target a failing team was given three years ago.
The head coach’s response was as right as that rightly derided statement that Scotland could win the World Cup was wrong, when he refused to be drawn into criticising the referee after, in wet conditions, one of his players called the wrong lineout option, another threw the ball too high, another consequently failed to control his tap down and another failed to tidy up before yet another arguably reacted the wrong way.
While Craig Joubert, the referee, made a wrong decision in failing to see the ball coming back towards Jon Welsh off an Australian, he got one more thing right than the collected Scottish players did in that sequence because, under current protocols, he was not allowed to refer the matter to the TV replay official.
This was a Scotland team that on the basis of any sort of ‘trajectory analysis’, to use the jargon beloved of modern sports managers, was never going to win the World Cup and continued failure to recognise that will only damage the sport more than it has been by repeated strategic blunders in the professional era.
Without recourse to the CSI Murrayfield level of multi-media tools the following should be noted:
A jittery Australia, in their most error-riddled performance of the World Cup, scored five tries, had another ruled out (after recourse to the TV replay official no less) because of the tiniest of knock-ons by Will Genia, while yet another was prevented only by Stuart Hogg’s stunning cover tackle on Adam Ashley-Cooper.
So, as praise of their efforts resounds, that Scotland were a fingernail or two away from conceding seven tries might be worth considering in light of the opprobrium being heaped upon France for supposedly capitulating as some have claimed they did to the All Blacks.
Among those tries, too, was yet another conceded too easily from a close range driving lineout, while had Bernard Foley kicked as he did against England at the same venue earlier in the tournament this match might have taken a very different course had Drew Mitchell’s second try, early in the second half, taken the score to 28-16 rather than Scotland still being within a score.
That last point is hypothesis so perhaps slightly unfair to over-emphasise, just as it feels cruel to note that, having led the side heroically through this tournament, Greig Laidlaw’s only missed shot at goal from eight attempts would have made the difference, whereas Foley managed to put the last ditch pressure kick over the bar when he needed to.
However in terms of what teams are setting out to do it must also be acknowledged that of Scotland’s three tries, one was the result of a charge down and another came from an interception.
Matt Taylor, their defence coach, would be first to say that gain-line pressure can be as much of a weapon as anything else, but in developmental terms there is a difference between crafting scores and that sort of opportunism, while he will also be aware that his defence more than twice as many tries in the pool stages as Graham Steadman’s did at the 2011 tournament.
That apart, then, this was an improved effort compared with the Six Nations Championship but in reality they emerged from one of the weaker groups having benefited hugely from the scheduling that meant they were fresh when facing a Japan side that had, four days earlier, created the biggest shock in World Cup history and, in the decisive match, lost the try count 4-3 to a Samoa team that scored just three tries in its other three matches.
All of which may seem brutally harsh, but if anyone in the Scotland camp cannot cope with it then they are still not ready to challenge the elite.
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