OMNI-SHAMBLES
Dispiriting Six Nations finishes with defeat in Dublin, as Scottish rugby deals with the fall out of that illicit night out
WELCOME: the word ‘Omnishambles’, coined by the Thick Of It’s master of spin Malcolm Tucker and added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2012, is defined as “a situation that has been comprehensively mismanaged, characterized by a string of blunders and miscalculations. See: Scotland’s Six Nations 2022” (I may have added the last bit myself). It seems the best word to sum up a dispiriting campaign capped off by yesterday’s defeat in Dublin and the ignominious events of last weekend’s illicit drinking session. That opening weekend win over England seems a distant memory now: instead, Scottish fans will painfully reflect on defeat at the hands of an average at best Wales side, capitulation to the French at home, an unconvincing victory over Italy and an Irish thrashing, topped off by senior players disobeying the wishes of the head coach to indulge in an Edinburgh night out. This week we look back at Scotland-Ireland, give our take on Hogg, Darcy, Finn et al’s Why Not adventures, and review the Six Nations campaign as a whole. Trigger warning - this could be a bloody tough read at points.
MATCHPINT WASH-UP: a massive congratulations to Blair Mclaughlin, the winner of the Thistle’s Match Pint predictor league for this year’s Six Nations. He finished with 14 correct predictions and 2 perfect scores - just outside the top ten in the world!
Stay tuned for prizes other than bragging rights. The less said about our performance the better (capping out at 39th position). Thanks to all for participating and making it such fun again.
DEFEAT IN DUBLIN: Scotland ended their Six Nations campaign with a disappointing 26-5 defeat at the hands of their Irish hosts at the Aviva. Although Ireland were not at their best, they still had far too much for Gregor Townsend’s men, scoring four tries to Scotland’s sole score from Pierre Schoeman. Scotland enjoyed some periods of dominance, and at times matched the Irish pack, to the extent they trailed only 14-5 at the sixty minute mark. However their performance was not the kind that wins test matches, plagued by inaccuracy and woeful discipline at key points.
Scotland started the match reasonably well, Blair Kinghorn pulling the strings nicely after recovering from a shaky start to his international career at stand-off. Both Pierre Schoeman and Darcy Graham made promising breaks yet they fizzled out, and no sooner had Scotland gained any momentum than they handed it back to the hosts through careless penalties. It was no real surprise that Ireland opened the scoring, the impressive Sheahan crashing over in the 17th minute, before fellow front row colleague Cian Healy crossed for their second score after concerted Irish pressure. To their credit, Scotland defended manfully at points, and started to work their way back into the game. After their first meaningful passage of phase play Schoeman burrowed over in the tight, despite the best intentions of the pernickety TMO (thank you for your common sense Wayne Barnes), taking the score to 14-5 at half time.
Scotland dug in and really should have narrowed the gap early in the second half. After Chris Harris’ speculative chip took a fortunate deflection, Stuart Hogg found himself in the clear, ten metres from the Irish line and with four players in close support. But rather than give the easy pass, the Scotland captain chose to go for glory himself, only to be tackled easily into touch by opposite number Hugo Keenan. Golden chance, squandered. Butchery. Amateur. Disastrous. Take your pick.
Maybe it was the culmination of the week’s events, combined with the disappointment of Scotland’s Six Nations as a whole, but that was one of most soul destroying moments your correspondent has witnessed in his many years as a Scottish rugby fan, ranking up there with Craig Joubert’s penalty calamity in the 2015 World Cup quarter final. Hogg simply had to give that pass. Is it too much of a reach to say he would have had it not been for his part in last week’s escapades, and a subsequent desire for rehabilitation amongst the Scottish rugby public? Ireland were able to clear their lines, Scotland conceded yet another penalty, and the moment was lost.
Not long later, Ireland put the result beyond doubt, with Josh Van Der Flier darting over from a smart inside ball that had Jonny Gray flapping at thin air. Connor Murray added the bonus point try with the last play of the game, taking advantage of Scotland being reduced to 14 men after Ben White’s late yellow card.
Highlights of the match for the masochists amongst you:
ANY POSITIVES OUT THERE? Scotland fronted up well for parts of the match, with most of the pack giving a decent account of themselves. Hamish Watson played his best game since the Lions, Darge was his usual all action self, and Pierre Schoeman once again showed he is made for this level. Darcy Graham was the best of a subdued backline, carrying for 94 metres and beating six defenders.
Ultimately Scotland got what they deserved on the day, and it could have been a whole lot worse had Ireland been at full tilt. Just looking at the stats from yesterday’s match, one might have expected a far closer score line. Scotland were just shaded in the territory and possession stakes, but made more clean breaks and beat more defenders in attack, and had a better tackle completion rate than the hosts. However, their discipline was once again chronically poor - just the 15 penalties conceded this week - and their mistakes came at the key moments of the match. Think Graham barging into Keenan after a good kick from Kinghorn; Ali Price knocking on at the base of a ruck in a promising part of the pitch; Hogg’s butchered overlap.
Perhaps the fallout from last week explains these brain fades in part, but it feels like we are seeing the same thing week in week out at the moment. It is tough to admit, but Scotland under Gregor Townsend currently give the impression they are not cut out for playing top tier test rugby. This could maybe be forgiven were Townsend still pursuing “the fastest brand of rugby”™ but this was supposedly consigned to history under the stewardship of Steve Tandy and Pieter De Villiers. Are Scotland suffering an identity crisis?
SHALL WE HAVE A NIGHT OUT, WHY NOT? there isn’t really a snappy name for the events of last weekend - ‘Finn and Hogg-gate’? ‘The King and Prince of Hawick plus ones’? ‘Finn-gate part two’? - but we have to talk about it - yet another drink-related controversy under the reign of Gregor Townsend.
While the events of Saturday evening (and Sunday morning) are not entirely clear, and not just due to the strength of a Why Not jaeger bomb, we know from the SRU that Stuart Hogg, Finn Russell, Ali Price, Darcy Graham, Sam Johnson and Sione Tuipulotu were all disciplined for breaching team protocols after their Six Nations victory over Italy. While the Murrayfield media machine provided few details beyond this, the Thistle spies tell us that the following is rumoured to have taken place:
The players were told they were allowed a few drinks on the plane back from Rome to celebrate Ali Price’s 50th cap , but to leave it at that, with a recovery day planned for the Sunday
The six players mentioned decided to carry on the night out after landing in Edinburgh, despite the warnings of some back room staff members, and made their way to fabled George Street institution Why Not
Gregor Townsend somehow found out about the illicit night out (perhaps he had his suspicions and was surveying the Why Not Facebook page…), rang Hogg and ordered the players back to the hotel within thirty minutes, otherwise they would be dropped for the Ireland match
Some of the players obeyed the instruction (including Hoggy) but others such as Russell and Johnson carried on with their night
We understand that although Johnson returned to the hotel at c.4am, Russell instead went to his parents house in Stirlingshire, and failed to attend the next day’s recovery session
While these things are rarely black and white, let us call this what it is: an absolute embarrassment for Scottish rugby.
The fact the players thought it was appropriate to even attend a night club the week before a huge test match is rank amateurism. Would their opposite men - think Sexton, Gibson-Park, Keenan - be hitting it hard in Dublin’s Temple Bar in the lead up to a Six Nations fixture? Their behaviour is disrespectful to their teammates, the coaching staff and Scottish rugby fans.
The nature of the players’ indiscretions is compounded by the make up of the group. If this had been a collection of junior or even fringe members of the squad, either led astray by the folly of youth or unlikely to feature against Ireland, it would be more understandable. Yet the captain of the national team, supposedly one of our best ever players and a self-avowed patriot to his core, was at the vanguard, flanked by fellow senior players (and vice captains) Russell and Price. They are all Lions and have 50-plus caps for the national team for goodness’ sake.
Allied with his recent patchy performances in the Scotland shirt, the fact that Russell carried on the night out and allegedly failed to turn up for Sunday’s training is worth remarking on. After Finn-gate in 2020, it looked like bridges had been mended and that Russell was in a far better place coming into the national camp. He still clearly liked a drink or two, but his form generally made up for the fact. But the question has to be asked: what does Finn want from his rugby career? Does he want his legacy to be brilliant maverick outdone by lack of professionalism, or once in a generation talent driving Scotland to new levels of success? Recent months would suggest this question remains up in the air.
A CASE FOR THE DEFENCE: Let’s play devil’s advocate for a moment. These are all young men in their mid to late-20s, under enormous pressure week in week out and forced to comply with ever changing covid bubbles, protocols etc. They are also adults, not children who can have their every move dictated to them from above. Ali Price has every right to celebrate his 50 caps, and the victory over Italy would have been a mighty pressure release after the losses to France and Wales. The fact that even a younger player like Graham, and a less senior figure in Tuipulotu, felt the right (or compulsion?) to go against the head coach’s wishes, potentially speaks to a rotten culture within camp.
But let us address each of these arguments in turn:
Covid has been tough for everyone, but professional athletes are privileged to some extent (sport was allowed long before workplaces, restaurants, pubs and cinemas were re-opened), and like it or not, they have a level of responsibility in terms of their off-field behaviour, particularly when they are representing their country - who is also effectively their employer…
Telling grown adults how to behave is rarely a good indicator of a healthy culture, but the team protocols were already in place, and had reportedly been agreed upon by both the coaches and the players themselves
Re Ali Price’s landmark cap, would it not have been more responsible to celebrate with a couple of beers, and table a proper knees up for after the end of the Six Nations? Were they really in such desperate need of a night out on George Street?
If we agree that Townsend has created a toxic culture, was this the right time for the players to make their stand? Once again, could they not have waited a week? And if things at the Oriam were so bad, why didn’t the whole squad express their disillusionment (from what we have heard, Saturday’s escapades did not go down well with the rest of the playing group)?
So clearly we have little time for these fairly flimsy arguments. Although we do not know enough at present to say whether we are on team Toonie, it is difficult to not feel a little sorry for the head coach, who has clearly been let down massively by his players. Say what you want about Townsend’s tactics, selections etc, but he clearly has the country’s best interests at heart, and is driven to make Scotland the best team possible. He has also put a lot of faith in Hogg and Russell (the latter of which required him to eat a decent portion of humble pie).
HOT OR NOT: A post Six Nations look at the ups and downs in Scottish Rugby.
HEATING UP
Rory Darge continued his meteoric rise to the top of Scottish Rugby with three assured performances. His starting debut vs France is one of the best in living memory and he has effectively made himself undroppable. As the age of Watson comes to a close, the decade of Darge is ushered in.
Pierre Schoeman is another man on the up. With the injury to Lion Rory Sutherland coming early, the greatest showman was given his opportunity to seize the no.1 jersey and has taken it. Effective in both the loose and the tight, he should be the cornerstone of the scrum for years to come.
Darcy Graham bolstered his reputation as one of the games deadliest finishers. In a struggling team, he was a constant threat, picking up returns vs Wales and Italy, plus the penalty try vs England. We will overlook his excursion to Why Not for now which seems hugely out of character - maybe under the rules of Hawick he isn’t allowed to disobey Hogg?
George Turner had another barnstorming tournament. Devastating in the loose and with improved arrows, the no.2 jersey seems settled for now in the three way battles vs Brown and McInally.
TEPID
Scotland centres were unable to light up this years Six Nations, apart from some nice play in the Italy match. Harris was the regular at 13 with Bennett getting some time off the bench and Johnson, Tuipulotu, Redpath and Russell (I think Russell came on at 12?) all getting their shot at inside centre. Whilst its hard to pinpoint anything specific at the centres, there is no moment, outside the Italy game, where you can point to the centre partnership creating anything significant in attack. Harris is clearly an exceptional defensive player, but will there always be a limiting factor with him in the team? It will be interesting to see how Townsend utilises players like Bennett, Huw Jones and Hutchinson over the summer and whether he looks to reignite that attacking spark that Bennett 2014/2015 and Jones 2016-2018 were able to deliver.
Ali Price has really struggled after his world class performances during the Lions tour. He’s still dangerous in open play but his consistency of box kick, distribution and unforced errors have all been below his recent high standard. He remains the Scotland number one but would like to see him rested this summer and more game time provided to the next tranche of Scotland scrumhalves - White, Vellacott, Dobie and co.
FREEZING
Stuart Hogg: while we do not want to bag individuals too much, Hogg’s role in the Scotland team has come under greater scrutiny of late, given his captaincy position and role in last week’s drinking session. Although his performances were good at times - think against England and in parts against Ireland - once again he is responsible for a number of high profile errors, namely the missed scoring opportunities against France and Ireland. Perhaps the captaincy role itself is his undoing: clearly determined to lead from the front, it looks like he is trying too hard at times. His communication style can also be grating at times: did Scotland really control large parts of the game against Ireland? Were we really the better team at times against France? He also was far more tetchy than he had any right to be when asked about his indiscretions after the Ireland match. Hogg’s captaincy looks to be on a very shoogly peg, and maybe this is for the best in the long term, for both player and national team…
Finn Russell: similarly, Finn had a poor tournament by his high standards. Although he managed to guide us to victory over England, and started well versus the Welsh, there is little to point to for the remainder of the tournament, capped off by being dropped for the Ireland finale. Russell’s casual manner, and apparent lack of conditioning, can be forgiven when he is performing on all cylinders, but when things aren’t working, questions start to be asked about his attitude and professionalism. Maybe his issue is the drop down in quality from his club side Racing 92 - where he sits behind a dominant pack and can look to the likes of Gael Fickou and Virimi Vakatawa outside him - to the Scotland team? Given the events of last weekend, it is our suspicion at Thistle HQ that his issues with Townsend have never truly been resolved.
Scottish discipline: the stats are damning - Scotland conceded the most penalties in the tournament, and their penalty conceded count has been rising across the last three tournaments. It is difficult to pinpoint the cause for this. Is it a fitness issue? Lack of trust in defensive systems? Mental weakness? Subconscious rebellion against the current coaching team? Whatever the reason, Scotland’s penalty count has been an absolute killer.
Scottish defence: Scotland’s defensive performance has suffered a similar slide over recent tournaments. From the 2020 Six Nations, when Scotland conceded a measly 5 tries, they allowed 15 past them this year. This included three conceded against Italy, who had barely troubled their opponents’ try line up to that point in the tournament. Once again the reasons for this drop are hard to surmise, but combined with the marked decrease in discipline, clearly something isn’t right. Scotland are supposedly now “hard to beat”, in the words of defence coach Steve Tandy - these stats would suggest the complete opposite.
Townsend’s selections: in our mind it is the players who are largely responsible for this drop off in discipline and defence (the latter perhaps less so given the systems have to be fit for purpose), yet Townsend has to cop some flak for questionable player selections throughout the tournament. Why change the entire front row from the England to Wales match? What changed for Sam Johnson to be chucked post England and then brought back for Italy? Why was Ben Vellacott brought in for one match then unceremoniously dumped for Ben White? And most confusingly of all - what is the Blair Kinghorn at 10 experiment all about? To be clear, we think Kinghorn is a very good club player who has done a decent job in the back three for Scotland, who given time could very well become a good back up option at 10. But chucking him in from the off against an excellent Ireland team, having played just a handful of games in the position at club level, is simply madness. Particularly when you have Adam Hastings - who has never let Scotland down - waiting in the wings and in reasonably good form for his club side. We appreciate the optionality Kinghorn at 10 provides in terms of a 6-2 bench, but Hastings has shown he can do a passable turn at 15. It just doesn't add up.
1872 CUP REPORT: Glasgow took home the spoils in the opening 1872 cup fixture, claiming a 30-17 victory over Edinburgh at Scotstoun. The win moves Glasgow into third place in the URC, while Edinburgh remain in 5th place, two points behind play-off rivals Munster.
It was easy to forget this match, originally scheduled to take place outside of the international window, was even happening given the last week in the world of Scottish rugby. Although both sides were deprived of their Scottish internationals, there was still plenty of quality throughout, albeit Glasgow looked to have the stronger starting line up.
The home side had the better of the first half, Tom Gordon crossing twice to show that he has plenty to say about Rory Darge’s supposedly secure hold on the Glasgow number 7 shirt. However, Edinburgh stuck in the fight, Glen Young barging over after some good work in the tight. Boan Venter then scored for the visitors, before a wonder try from Glasgow - Cancilliere picking up a loose ball just outside the Warriors 22 and then feeding the supporting Josh Mackay to score in the corner - swung the match in their favour. From there, Jamie Dobie and Ross Thompson took the game by the scruff of the neck and Edinburgh were denied a sniff of a comeback.
For Glasgow Jamie Dobie took his chances well in the absence of George Horne, and was a deserved man of the match. Cancilliere showed how dangerous he can be in open play, while it was also heartening to see Stafford McDowell back in action after far too long away from the pitch - if Scotland are looking for a robust 12 with both passing and kicking ability, he could be the long-term option if he manages to build on this game time.
Highlights below:
U20 whitewash: adding to the general malaise of Scottish rugby at present, Sunday night saw the Scotland U20s complete their second consecutive Six Nations whitewash after a heavy defeat to their Irish counterparts. The result went pretty much as expected, Kenny Murray’s men exposed for their lack of conditioning and general gulf in class. Combined with relegation to the second tier of the Junior World Cup, it is clear that something is very wrong with the current pathway system. Combined with Italy’s recent rise at this level, it is time to worry slightly. While the solutions are far from simple, Murray pointed to his side’s lack of competitive game time in recent months - Super 6 has summarily failed on this count - and poor conditioning compared to their hosts. And quite frankly we cannot expect players in Prem 1 to be competing with opponents housed in professional academies and frequently exposed to a higher level of competition. David Barnes of the Offside Line pulled no punches in the below article:
Highlights of the match below:
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