A “raging” Sean Lamont called for a “closed-doors finger-pointing” post-mortem to Scotland’s Six Nations loss to Wales on Saturday, with a demand of “how much do you want it?” for every player in the squad.
Lamont came on from the bench after only 20 minutes at Murrayfield, and his anger at being omitted, as well as the way the team were playing, manifested itself both on the pitch, in a wholehearted and committed performance, but also in the dressing room and interview room afterwards.
Stand-off Dan Parks admitted the team had got a rant from head coach Andy Robinson after the 24-6 loss to a Welsh team without a win in the previous eight games, and Lamont’s anger had hardly cooled even after that.
“I know the coaches are raging I’m raging, because we know we can play far better than that,” said the Perth-born wing.
“We just weren’t clinical enough, same as last week, that’s why I think boys have got to take a look at themselves.
“Little things are killing us knock-ons, some passes today didn’t just miss, they went nowhere near guys.”
He added, “It’s embarrassing they were down to 13 men at one point and we didn’t convert, which was criminal.
“I know Andy’s apologised to the supporters and it’s warranted. We really need to pull the finger out.”
The time had come to ask every player either shape up or ship out, Lamont said.’How much do you want it?’He said, “We’ve got to regroup. I think it’s time for some closed-door finger-pointing, asking some serious questions.
“How much do you want it? Do you actually want to be here?
“Because if you don’t there are boys ready to step up.”
He added, “I’ve been purely rage-powered the last two weeks, because I want my starting space back.
“I have a point to prove my first 50 caps were all starts. I’ve never had this thing of sitting on the bench and I don’t want it any more.
“I have a point to prove, but it applies to every player, starting or coming off the bench if you’re starting, it’s yours to lose.”
Lamont said, “My thought when I came on was ‘not here we should not lose this way at Murrayfield.’
“We needed to rebound from France, but it was the same mistakes not physical enough at contact, not physical enough at the breakdown.
“Just look at the South Africa game in November, the way we hit the breakdown, the way we hit them when they came round the corner none of that was there, not last week nor this.”‘Pure grunt’He added, It’s not defensive systems and not attacking systems, it’s just pure grunt.
“If you’re not going to put your body on the line, run full out, you deserve what you get, and we got it today.”
Parks said the team were given a “collective rant” from the coach, but they all knew it was deserved.
“He brought some valid points, but we really didn’t need to be told that, because we know ourselves it was not acceptable,” he said.
“It was that start that cost us, and having talked about not giving James Hook space to operate at the line, that’s just what we did, and we paid for it.”
He added, “Suddenly they’ve got confidence, we give away five penalties in a row, and we’re 16-0 having barely had the ball.
“In the games we’ve won in the last year we’ve been the team that played better in the first half, but the difference was that we made chances and didn’t take them.”
Scotland had one serious injury, with full-back Hugo Southwell requiring several stitches to his face and mouth after he caught Lee Byrne’s boot while chasing a high ball.