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Wales v Scotland

I'm absolutely heartbroken over this. Only Scotland (in any sporting field) can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in such a way.

More than anything though I hope the injury to Thom Evans turns out to be not as serious as feared. It's a horrible thing to think about and I hope it's something he can make a speedy recovery from.
 
An absolute steal for Wales. I bet they couldn't believe their luck when Scotland pressed the self destruct button with ten minutes to go.

Hopefully that's the last we see of Cooper for awhile, another awful performance. Stephen Jones was pretty poor again as well. Poor decision making, and his kicking was very poor, his missed touch from 'Big' Shane's brilliant catch nearly proved to be the nail in the coffin. It worked out in the end, but I thought his speculative cross kick in the build up to the try was unnecessarily risky, given that he knew at some point we would have had a 2 man overlap if we'd just kept the ball in hand.

I thought the referee made the correct decision in making Scotland take the kick off, as their was still twenty seconds left to go when Jones slotted the penalty and Scotland were clearly time wasting. However, why didn't Scotland just put it straight into touch? I can't imagine that the ref would have made them take the scrum on the half way line that long after the 80 minutes were up. Especially as with the truly awful display of scrummaging throughout the game it would have taken about 9 minutes to get play going again.
 
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (SSE @ Feb 14 2010, 08:02 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div>
Stephen Jones was pretty poor again as well. Poor decision making, and his kicking was very poor, his missed touch from 'Big' Shane's brilliant catch nearly proved to be the nail in the coffin. It worked out in the end, but I thought his speculative cross kick in the build up to the try was unnecessarily risky, given that he knew at some point we would have had a 2 man overlap if we'd just kept the ball in hand.[/b]
Click to expand...
Yeah, I'm a fan of Jones but both those kicks were no-nos. Very lucky the last one worked out.

I thought Clancy handled the last 10 mins very well. Helter skelter, but he didn't put a foot wrong. Not sure about his reffing of the scrum, but WTF do I know about that!
 
Wow what a game, feel gutted for Scotland as they did deserve something out of the game!

However I did pick up a few things, now Ive just comeback from the game and wanted to re-watch the game as I felt that there were a load of things that needed to be mentioned.

The stuff in brackets are the time that appears on the game clock, check iPlayer for reference.

Lets start of the negatives about the game first.

Negatives:

Jim Hamilton illegal use of the feet, stamping (1:40) - Clancy on ref radio said it was a 'cleat stamp' which means by law it should be a yellow card.
Dan Parks delaying game with drop outs on more than one occasion (52:16) (77:21) are the incedent.
Constant infringing at the ruck - hand and players offside
Wales missed to many tackles
Martyn Williams and Gethin Jenkins not fit - Martyn Williams had fitness test before kick off.
Euan Murray and Scottish loose head should have been yellow carded at scrum time
Andy Powell was poor
Gareth Cooper was poor - Biggest cheer of the day when subbed
George Clancy was poor, for BOTH sides
Clancy asked Peter Fitzgibbon to to watch binding but nothing was ever done (23:35)
Barclay offside, slow down Welsh quick ball (28:19)
Stephen Jones kicking was horrible, kick at goal he missed could have cost Wales the game (29:15)
Byrne poor pass to Roberts in Scotland 22(31:48)
Gareth Williams should have been penalised for feet in play during throwing the ball into lineout (33:10)
Andy Powell aimless kick (35:30)
Gareth Cooper over runs Roberts in support with the ball (35:10)
Thom Evans injury, Byrne knee / leg makes contact with Evans head, jaring is head (35:01)
Clancy misses Welsh knock on in ruck (37:30)
Byrne overuns Roberts pass (38:15)
Peter Fitzgibbon misses Cusiter in touch / Lead to Sean Lamont's poor forward pass (43:03)
Clancy misses Scotland not being 10 after penalty (46:45)
Cusiter unlucky not to be yellow carded, Richie Rees the same for the stamp on the arm (47:55)
Hook fails to hold onto ball in Scotland 22 (49:05)
Martyn Williams missed many tackles.
Huw Bennett and his lineout throwing are terrible.
Was the pass at (80:58) forward to Halfpenny?

Now for the Positives:

Dan Parks kicking was brillaint (61:00) and (65:45) an example of this
Scotland creative
Scotland would enter Wales 22 and made sure they would get points when they were down there
Scotland used Ball well
Nice to see Andy Robinson get smile wiped away
Scotland drop out / restarts were very well executed.
Gareth williams redeemed himself.
Alun Wyn Jones used his head to tackle someone after injuring his bicep (34:52)
Lee Halpenny did well with what ball he was given
Richie Rees, Crowd cheered when he was announced as a replacement at half time for Cooper!
Shane Williams Catch under pressure from Scotland (64:43)
George Clancey warned Scotland at (68:09) that a yellow card would follow another foul!
Jonathan Davies screaming NNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!(81:19)
 
Tense much?

Not sure how we got away with that but it was entertaining stuff. With my Scottish hat on, I'm gutted for my mates who had to suffer yet another Scottish capitulation. They played so well as well.

Way, way, way too many errors from Wales but at least Gatland may finally realise that Cooper is not good enough.
 
I know one of the English newbies on the forums was quite bitter about us beating the scots with 2 forward passes, but i'm quite certain there was at least one forward pass by us.
But hey, these things happen and when they favour you they are much easier to take.

In some respect we didn't deserve the win, it was the worst i've seen us play in a while against a mediocre team, but in other respect, we scored the most points. When the scots decided to hand the game to us we took it. We were very lucky to get some of bounces of the balls going our way, however.

I was bouncing around the pub in the last 10 mins. It was the most entertaining comeback ive seen in a while.
 
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (RC @ Feb 13 2010, 11:45 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div>
In some respect we didn't deserve the win, it was the worst i've seen us play in a while against a mediocre team[/b]
Click to expand...

I think you are totally wrong there.

Scotland were not mediocre they played well and showed how well they actually did last week against the French, under Robinson they look like a well drilled unit with good set play and have a creative flair. Parks looked immense today and cannot await his arrival at the Blues next season. They do lack a world class player in their ranks, but to call them mediocre is disrespectful.

It was not the worst ive seen us play and I can see where you are coming from. Our scrum was solid, lineouts went well until Bennett came on and we created more opportunities, we failed to convert them. If you need any help on seeing that check my post above with things that were positive and negative, and go and look at the times noted and you will find we played well but could not convert. Pretty simple really.
 
It is probably the best all-round performance I have ever seen from Scotland.
With regards to us, it was easily our worst performance in about 5 years, and I hope the last 4 minutes doesn't mask that fact from everybody.
If nothing else, please can someone make sure Gareth Cooper never plays for Wales again?
 
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (GJ#1 @ Feb 13 2010, 11:53 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div>
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (RC @ Feb 13 2010, 11:45 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Click to expand...
In some respect we didn't deserve the win, it was the worst i've seen us play in a while against a mediocre team[/b]
Click to expand...

I think you are totally wrong there.

Scotland were not mediocre they played well and showed how well they actually did last week against the French, under Robinson they look like a well drilled unit with good set play and have a creative flair. Parks looked immense today and cannot await his arrival at the Blues next season. They do lack a world class player in their ranks, but to call them mediocre is disrespectful.

It was not the worst ive seen us play and I can see where you are coming from. Our scrum was solid, lineouts went well until Bennett came on and we created more opportunities, we failed to convert them. If you need any help on seeing that check my post above with things that were positive and negative, and go and look at the times noted and you will find we played well but could not convert. Pretty simple really.

[/b][/quote]

I'm gonna have to disagree with you on that.
It's not disrespectful to Scotland, they are simply a mediocre team right now...as are we. France were rusty last week, if they played Scotland this week i believe they would have put a similar scoreline in a similar manner as they did over ireland.
I didn't know it was possible for Parks to excite anyone! No professional club in the world should be so desperate for a fly half that the arrival of Parks would actually excite their fans.
I believe that any top 5 team in the world would have put more points on and conceded less than we did, hence the reason Scotland are mediocre. In relation to their previous 6 nations form, no it wasn't mediocre, but they justified their world ranking today.


Our execution was awful today; for the first time in ages we decided to utilse Roberts correctly at the cost of have no coherence and 9, 10 or 12; our scrum may have been solid but what kind of a platform did it create and the same goes for the lineouts. we got very little from the set plays; Kicking from hand was poor except for the occasioanl one from Byrne; first time tackling!!! Oh my god. I've never seen us miss so many tackles. Shocking defence.
We might at sometimes in the recent past have seemed uninspired and just because we scored some tries today it doesn't mean we weren't awful.

And that's why i believe I am far from being "totally wrong". Not quite as simple as you'd think.
 
No no no, the game against Australia last Autumn was easily a far worse performance by us than yesterday's. FAR worse.
 
My heart genuinely goes out to Scottish supporters tonight. they deserved the win,and were ultimately the better team. They were overpowering in the breakdown and used their possession to the max (until last 10 mins).... How we came back i will never know. my fist was in my mouth for the final 10..... absolutely nerve racking. Crazy stuff. As weird as it sounds it was nice to see and actual exiting game with wales for once, havent been on edge of my seat for a long while. Nice to see a "local" boy go over for the match winner tho :D
commiserations to all the Scots fans..... u deserved the win
 
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Will @ Feb 13 2010, 07:54 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div>
I'm absolutely heartbroken over this. Only Scotland (in any sporting field) can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in such a way.[/b]
Click to expand...

Sorry to break your heart again but the England Cricket team have been snatching defeat from the jaws of even inevitable and absolutely certain victory since time immemorial.
 
I don't think I have ever celebrated a win more than yesterday, to play so poorly in the 1st half but to claw it back in a far better 2nd half was great to see. Why on earth can't we put in an 80 minute effort rather than a 40 min one?
 
First of all commiserations to Scotland fans. As many others have said, you deserved to win that match. I also hope for a quick recovery by Thom Evans.

Secondly. I'm glad that Gareth Williams proved me wrong yesterday. His lineout throwing wasn't perfect, but it was much improved + Bannett was poor when he came on (we all know he's sh*t though).

Right onto the game, what a game! The last 10mins were as tense as any I've seen, marvelous comeback. After a shaky first 10mins, Shane Williams was simply superb. He showed that there's still life in him yet, hopefully he'll take alot of confidence from this game and show similar form to 08.

However, there is still alot of improvements to be made. First up tackling was the worst I've seen for some time, and I wouldn't want to be Hook and Cooper when they face Shaun Edwards! We again gave away too many penalties. I'd also like to see an end to the aimless kicking, just put it into touch a little more often.

Cooper will now finally be dropped, as Rees showed once again that he's playing much better. Same for Powell (especially after that Golf Cart debacle), Warberton made a very positive impact when he came on, and Jon Thomas looked more comfertouble in the backrow. Stephen Jones needs competition again to get the best from him, so it was dissapointing that Biggar was not on the bench. Roberts had a good game, but missed an opportunity to offload to Cooper (Cooper did overrun slightly, but the opportunity to pass was there for a second). Hope we see more from him and Hook against France.

Just one word about Alun-Wyn Jones. He wasn't all that great today, but he showed huge commitment when he put in that tackle with an injured shoulder. I know the tackle may not have been legal, but it was the best he could do with one arm.

Hope this gives us a little confidence, and also showes that we need to play a more open game, it's where we excell. Not atall confident against a French team playing like they are though!
 

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