SCOTLAND travel to Twickenham in a fortnight knowing a win will deliver their first Triple Crown since 1990 after defeating Wales 29-13 at Murrayfield yesterday. Behind by four at half-time, Vern Cotter’s team roared back after the break with 20 unanswered points to make it two home wins in a row following the win over Ireland. With Ireland’s game against the French kicking off later, Scotland went to the top of the Six Nations Championship as a result of beating Wales. It was their first win over the Welsh since 2007, and the perfect way to bounce back from the disappointment of losing in Paris a fortnight ago - and an ideal start as captain for John Barclay, who has replaced the injured Greig Laidlaw.
“I was really happy for a number of reasons,” Cotter, the head coach, said after the match. “We set out to win the game and at half-time we weren’t particularly well positioned to do that.
“The players adjusted well in the second half, we scored a couple of nice tries and transferred pressure back onto the Welsh team. It was a good second-half performance, so I’m very happy.”
The tries came from wingers Tommy Seymour and Tim Visser, while Finn Russell converted both and also scored five penalties. Liam Williams scored Wales’s only try, with the other points coming from the boot of full-back Leigh Halfpenny.
While Scotland were dominant in the second half after playing second fiddle for much of the first, Cotter insisted there had been no reading the riot act at half-time. Instead, he explained, the group as a whole talked calmly about how to tighten their grip on the game.
“We had to tweak a couple of things in the way we approached the game. The boys realised that we were probably watching them playing rather than playing ourselves. It’s fair to say that we could influence the outcome if we did a few things - and that wasn’t just me talking, it was everybody.
“I’m very proud of that response. It’s been a while since we could sit here and talk about a win over Wales.”
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