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Free-scoring Scots wear down Tonga with basics

Fly-half Finn Russell had a hand in four of Scotland's five tries against Tonga.
Fly-half Finn Russell had a hand in four of Scotland's five tries against Tonga.

In the seven games prior to Vern Cotter belatedly assuming the job as head coach, the Scotland international rugby team scored four tries.

This was under the coaching of the globally acknowledged skills and attack expert, Scott Johnson, remember. They got two against Italy and two against France, in the spring’s Six Nations.

Saturday’s five tries on the plastic at Rugby Park in the 37-12 defeat of Tonga brought the total in the seven games under Cotter to 17. Scotland are presently scoring four times as much as they did six months ago.

Sure, it’s a slightly false stat as the opposition has been slightly less onerous in the last seven games, and the two contests with the top two teams in the world under Cotter have brought just one try, an interception last week by Tommy Seymour.

However, Scotland have had consistent trouble for years scoring tries against anyone. Five against Argentina and five against Tonga in the same month is bordering on reckless abandon for those wearing dark blue.

When was the last time the Scots scored five tries against two Top 12 world-ranked teams in the same month? Erhow about never?

Taking a negative way of looking at it, it makes one slightly sick the SRU couldn’t get Cotter a year before this June as had been originally planned. Because such has been the progress of the team in his short six months in charge, one wonders how advanced they’d be with 12 more months on the clock.

Has the plain-speaking Kiwi turned Scotland into world beaters in that time? Of course not. There’s a school of pessimistic thought, although not a wholly unreasonable one, that says we might struggle to win more than one game in the Six Nations next spring.

However the defeat of a brave and pretty adept Tongan team on Rugby Park’s artificial turf barely anyone noticed other than a couple of lost footings showed that Scotland are miles better at being ruthless, thinking on their feet, and doing the rugby basics. Which makes them competitive in most scenarios.

Nowhere is this most starkly illustrated than at the lineout. This staple possession was roundly wasted during the Six Nations, 10 throws lost in the first two games against Ireland and England. Ross Ford, the hooker, took the rap and was almost run out of town.

In this autumn, with Ford still throwing, Scotland won 34 of 35 of their own lineouts and depending on which set of stats you believe stole 17 opposition throws.

The reason for this turnaround? It’s not a new scheme. It’s not someone (probably Cotter) lighting a fire under Ford so he’s back to the form that made him a British Lion. It’s not actually selecting Richie Gray dropped for those two games at that start of the Six Nations – at nearly seven feet tall a quark of Scottish genetics and therefore indispensable.

It’s not having Rob Harley as a third lineout target. It’s not the blossoming of Jonny Gray, still only 20, as an international class lock and leader when he probably wasn’t even an original choice for the Autumn.

It’s all of these things. Scotland now have a setpiece and a platform they know can beat teams with, and it is also a source of clean attacking ball which leads to tries, a large part of the reason why they’re scoring so many.

Not the only reason, though. Finn Russell had the odd awkward moment on Saturday, and he was no-one’s man of the match. But if you look closely at the game, he was directly involved in four of the five tries.

It was his tackle that forced the fumble for Stuart Hogg’s game-changing length of the field run. It was his deft change of direction and recognition that Alex Dunbar had two tiring forwards defending him – that brought about the centre’s score.

He made a couple of telling and testing runs in the build up to Geoff Cross scoring, and of course it was his inch-perfect cross-kick that saw Duncan Taylor and Seymour combine for the final score.

Russell’s still some way from being the finished article, but his assurance this autumn finally seems to have ended the discussion about who should be Scotland’s 10, having come up on the blindside while we were all debating Weir or Jackson or Laidlaw.

There was much talk of putting right the debacle of Pittodrie two years ago, but the game looked uncomfortably familiar in the first half as Scotland attempted a series of unconvincing lineout mauls and were generally hammered at the breakdown by the Tongans and referee JP Doyle.

Hogg’s length of the field try could hardly have been better timed as Tonga looked for all the world to be set for stretching their 12-7 lead at the time.

However while Andy Robinson hadn’t sent the team out with a Plan B at Aberdeen and they panicked, this time they regrouped, sutbly changed a couple of things at half-time and leaning on the lineout strength, wore down the Tongans in the second half.

You could also argue that had the Scots been slightly slicker at key moments in the first half, they could have had three more tries to the two they got. Tonga, on the other hand, barely breached Scotland’s 22 all afternoon. But for a disruptive last 20 minutes against Argentina, Matt Taylor’s defence has been well executed all autumn.

Strong defence, dominating lineout, decent scrum, variety with ball in hand, some speed; the fundamentals are all there for a decent Six Nations campaign.

One could argue that Scotland’s improvement this autumn has been matched by Ireland and, until Saturday’s result, by France. Wales are in no way weaker than they were putting 50 points on the Scots in March and England will be better than they’ve been this last three weeks.

It’s a tough school, the old championship. But the Scots have been doing their homework, and they might have the makings of a team that can make a stab at a decent grade.