In the cauldron of the biggest game of his life at St James’ Park with Samoan jerseys sprinting all over the pitch like a foaming Pacific wave, Greig Laidlaw may have come of age as Scotland’s leader.
The skipper has not had unanimously positive reviews in his time as Scotland captain. There are many who believe that he doesn’t merit his position as scrum-half, let alone the team’s leader.
But he chose the game he believed afterwards to be the highlight of his career – “leading my country to the quarter-finals of the World Cup, it has to be” to have his best game in the dark blue shirt.
It wasn’t perfect he turned down many kicks at goal he’d make in his sleep, some of them questionable, but not the most crucial one of all.
Most importantly he took on-field responsibility for a considerable crisis as Samoa threatened to run riot, calmed his team down from any panic, and eventually with 26 points led them to the 36-33 victory that meant Scotland’s premier goal of this Rugby World Cup was secured.
There was much talk during the ill-fated Six Nations campaign that Scotland lacked leadership, pretty much a code for the recall of players such as Kelly Brown or John Barclay. Vern Cotter largely resisted such calls, justifiably as with these players Scotland didn’t win a whole lot of games.
They haven’t won a huge amount under Laidlaw either. But Cotter put his faith in the scrum-half even when his first choice as skipper Edinburgh lock Grant Gilchrist returned from a long-term injury.
Cotter’s faith was wholly justified by the game that threatened to be a judgement on his year and a half as Scotland coach. Lose this, and the questionable contract extension he was given prior to the tournament would have looked even more dubious; his record would be no better than his predecessor Andy Robinson.
Even then, it was a close run thing. Some of Scotland’s structured play was chaotic, even though they insisted they expected the Samoans to come out and throw the ball about with abandon.
Assistant coach Duncan Hodge later admitted that a free-running, nothing to lose Samoa was the coachs’ nightmare.
“We didn’t want to transmit that to the players, but they were a wounded animal today,” he said. “To be fair they scored some great tries and put us under massive pressure defensively.”
Rey Lee-Lo in the Samoan centre, who the Scots will see regularly in the PRO12 with Cardiff after the World Cup, simply ran riot against the occasionally defensively suspect midfield duo of Matt Scott and Mark Bennett.
Up until Saturday the Scots hadn’t really missed defensive lynchpin Alex Dunbar, unable to recover from a torn ACL in time for the tournament. The gaps were as huge as they had been in the Six Nations against England and Ireland without Dunbar’s organisational expertise and hard hitting.
Even worse were the restarts, where Samoa spotted a Scottish weakness and exploited it mercilessly. The Scots couldn’t deal with Tusi Pisi’s flighted kicks to the short side and handed back possession and often a score straight after they had moved the scoreboard themselves.
It wasn’t until Ryan Wilson was yellow carded for a stamp that might see added interest from the citing commissioners that they were finally forced to move one of the Grays over to cover the problem.
Hey presto, Scotland comfortably exited from the next kick-off, won possession themselves, forced a penalty, drove a lineout and scored a crucial try a man down through the indefatigable John Hardie.
That was one of a number of tipping points in a game that fluctuated wildly. Others were the Samoan “fourth try” which would have given them a likely ten-point half-time lead – disallowed after a late check to the TMO that looked like a marginal offence, then Samoa’s decision to run that penalty in search of the lost try and instead knocking it on.
Then there was Lee-Lo’s last surge, when he tried to off-load to Ken Pisi but instead threw it to Tommy Seymour, whose outstanding alertness and opportunism had got Scotland their first try.
But then there was Laidlaw, telling his team after every setback and at half-time not to panic, to keep grinding and control would come. It was he who finally felled Lee-Lo despite the physical mismatch and won a holding-on penalty.
He missed that kick but kept popping over others. On occasion he got carried away as well and probably called one too many kicks to the corner as the Scots got control as he said they would but made heavy weather of making it count.
But eventually, with a penalty in front of the Samoan posts, Laidlaw asked his pack if they would back him in going for the scrum, and they did. Another penalty was coming as the Samoans splintered, but the captain took responsibility for the situation himself, dummying and stretching all of his 5 feet and 10 inches to score the try that gave Scotland the necessary breathing space of ten points.
Captains taking responsibility for pressure situations for their team hasn’t always worked well in this World Cup witness England’s Chris Robshaw but with Finn Russell having a fitful game outside him, “Greeg” was absolutely right to take control.
There was more excruciating tension for Scotland and the 52,000 crowd before they closed it out with a fourth Samoan try. To be entirely fair to Scotland, the Islanders came to play despite having nothing to play for, and in Kahn Fotauli’I had as good a leader from scrum-half.
Saturday’s performance and errors won’t do against Australia next Sunday, patently. But Scotland had to get to play Australia in the first place. There’s still time for the team to find their true potential.