International 'A': Hogg slams poor turn-out

Scotland coach Graham Hogg hailed his side’s superb second-half performance in the 42-20 A team win over Wales at Myreside tonight then attacked the lack of home support among a 6,000 crowd.

With up to 20,000 Welsh fans expected in Edinburgh for tomorrow’s Six Nations clash, a healthy contingent from the Valleys were left disappointed by the visitors’ dismal efforts.

But though Hogg was delighted with Scotland’s on-field display, once again he was confused by an apathetic local public.

‘‘The players deserve better,’’ said Hogg.

‘‘There were more Welsh people in the crowd than Scottish. There were considerably more in the ground than the Edinburgh Reivers get but it is not much consolation when most of them are supporting the opposition.’’

Scotland grabbed five tries after a drab opening period, during which hooker Gavin Scott celebrated his return from a three-month injury absence and barged his way over in stoppage time.

After the break, Paul Johnstone, Shaun Longstaff and another injury-plagued duo, Glenn Metcalfe and Simon Taylor, also scored. Longstaff’s effort was the pick of the Scottish quintet, the winger racing onto Taylor’s pass to finish off a six man move.

‘‘The first half was a bit stop start and they slowed us down a little bit,’’ said Scotland skipper Graeme Burns.

‘‘But we dictated the pace after the interval and we looked quite sharp with the ball in hand.

‘‘Shaun’s try was an excellent team effort and it was nice to see the Welsh fans leaving 20 minutes from the end.’’

Huw Harries has threatened a brief Welsh revival with his second-half try but that was quickly snuffed out, rendering late efforts from Chris Stephens and Craig Morgan as little more than consolations.

Wales hooker Jonathan Humphreys and Scotland flanker Don Mackinnon were sin-binned at either end of the second period but there was little consolation for Wales coach Mike Ruddock.

‘‘Scotland were far more hungry,’’ he admitted.

‘‘We didn’t get anywhere near the levels we can reach.

‘‘The Scots seem to become 10 feet tall when they pull on that blue jersey and we will have to analyse where we went wrong because it was a bad performance.’’