Scotland’s key Autumn Test Series – setting them up for a scheduled ten home games in the next 12 months going into the World Cup – got off to a deflating start with a 16-15 loss to Australia on Saturday.
At 15-6 going into the final quarter at Murrayfield, the Scots were threatening to score again. Instead, a yellow card to Glen Young allowed the Wallabies a path back in. Even then, Blair Kinghorn tugged a fairly straightforward penalty to win it left of the posts.
As the first game of a long international season, there was inevitably rust. There were some good things, but plenty of careless and silly errors.
Despite the optimistic noises from the camp – on the back of what’s been a mediocre 2022 so far in terms of results – there’s clearly a good deal of work to be done.
Changes for Fiji?
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Townsend has a tricky decision this week – does he now ‘rest’ Blair Kinghorn after the disappointment, or is that going to affect his anointed stand-off even more?
“Blair’s shown throughout his career he’s someone who can bounce back from mistakes,” said the head coach.
“There’s always going to be times in a game, especially when you are playing at 10, when things are not going that well. But I thought he showed really good resilience throughout the 80 minutes.”
It was virtually a new team, he added, and it could be a new one next week. We can expect Stuart Hogg back, at least – Ollie Smith did pretty well but Hogg’s all-round game and especially his kicking game were missed.
Jonny Gray is likely to return in the second row. Chris Harris could be back in the centre and Townsend will want to see a lot of Cameron Redpath, one imagines.
But Adam Hastings for Kinghorn? Certainly he would have the advantage in one key area…
The placekicking game
During his time with Glasgow, Dave Rennie appeared to think that kicking penalty goals was chicken.
Now he’s Wallabies coach, there’s no such foolhardiness. Australia kicked just one penalty to the corner, and it was when they were a man up. A few phases later, James Slipper scored their try.
Did Scotland’s decision-making not to go for the posts come from the fact that Blair Kinghorn is not a regular kicker? As Townsend conceded, he’s kicked far more often for Scotland than he has for Edinburgh, where Mark Bennett kicked in preference to him in the early part of the season.
“He felt he kicked it well,” said the head coach of the final penalty. “He maybe could have kept over it a little longer, but that’s a technical thing and he’ll learn from that.”
It hasn’t happened in many other areas of the game, but Scotland have been spoiled in goalkicking for 20 years with Chris Paterson, Dan Parks and Greig Laidlaw.
Finn Russell, also not a regular at club level (until this season) hasn’t been as prolific as that trio, but has never missed a really key kick. Adam Hastings is pretty automatic.
It definitely matters, especially when a team successfully counters the lineout drive the way the Wallabies did.
Other chances missed…
Scotland missed too many opportunities – both kicking and in the situations that resulted from them declining the posts.
The ease in which they scored their first try on the first attack had us fooled. Australia’s defence sorted itself out quickly, and Scotland seemed to lose direction.
The worst was maybe in the first half, seeing Duhan van der Merwe in glorious isolation unmarked on the right touchline as the forwards bashed ineffectively a couple more times at the Wallaby line.
(Duhan joined the attacking lineout on the opposite wing three or four times during the game; whatever Scotland had up their sleeve with that move, it never materialised.)
Two big miss-passes from Kinghorn were off target, and although Sione Tuipulotu shouldn’t have dropped his, he shouldn’t have had to take it standing either. Jamie Ritchie had no chance to catch his, two feet above his head.
The maul never got going, with Townsend saying later he thought Australia got away with taking it down too often.
Most worryingly, Bennett saw little ball, and van der Merwe and Darcy Graham got it eight times between them. It’s not nearly enough.
Sort out the penalties
Glen Young not to blame for yellow card on ‘world class play’, says Gregor Townsend
Having got a little better in the summer, Scotland reverted to their chronic indiscipline of the spring. Australia weren’t much better – the penalty count was 15-14 in Scotland’s favour – but it’s still far too many.
The head coach disputed one or two but conceded the general point that too many of them are silly – Pierre Schoeman’s headlong dive over a tackle being the daftest.
“Yes, and it was an issue in the Six Nations, absolutely,” agreed Townsend. “It was one of those games but we have to be better.
“We have to be better where we go close to the edge, in the lineout for example, to make sure we’re from learning what the first penalty is telling us about the way the game is being refereed.”
Scotland didn’t actually give away a penalty for the first 15 minutes. But they got back to the old habit of packaging them. Three quick ones in a row took play from the Australian 22 to Foley’s kick to get the Wallabies 6-5 ahead at half-time.
“We have to learn during a game,” added Townsend. “Our players realise that it can lead to bigger problems, like having to defend in your 22. It has to improve from today, absolutely.”