Pulverised by brute force and tactical intelligence

Those of us with an emotional investment in Scottish rugby have a complex relationship with the concept of hope. A long history of false dawns, of taking one step forward and two back, means a confusing cocktail of emotions – excitement shaken with a big dollop of dread – takes hold whenever the team shows a bit of promise going into a big tournament.

The most obvious recent example of this was at the start of the 2018 Six Nations when Gregor Townsend’s team travelled down to Cardiff off the back of an uplifting November schedule in which they had pushed New Zealand all the way and hammered Australia.

Their hosts were in the midst of an injury crisis so visiting hopes were high at kick-off time that a first win in the Principality since 2002 might be on the cards. Even the most bruised Scottish cynic was daring to hope. Wales soon put paid to that. After 80 demoralising minutes, Scotland’s dreams lay in tatters, buried by a 34-7 defeat.

Scotland shot themselves in the foot early with a gifted interception try to Gareth Davies. Finn Russell had a nightmare and without the steadying influence off Greig Laidlaw at scrum-half (he was on his way back from injury and came on for the final 32 minutes), Scotland were all over the place.

“It was a good way to get ourselves into the championship, having Scotland at home,” said home head coach Warren Gatland afterwards, never one to miss an opportunity to turn the knife.

The build-up to this match seemed remarkably similar. Scotland were near to full-strength and had talked a great game. Their pitiful performance in the first of their four warm-up games away to France at the start of August was a blip, we were told, which they had now got out of their system.

Their much-improved performances in the next three matches showed that they were hitting their groove at just the right time. They’d trained the best they had ever trained last week, we heard. Now was their time to show the rest of the world that there was real substance beneath their own styling as the fastest team on the planet.

At the back of every Scottish rugby supporters’ mind was the gnawing feeling we were building ourselves up for a fall. And so it proved. After just 24 harrowing minutes, the team’s lofty aspirations lay dead in the water, having been pulverised by Ireland’s brute force, accuracy and tactical intelligence.

Scotland had no answer. The more Ireland got on top, the looser Townsend’s team became. The loss of open-side flanker Hamish Watson with a serious-looking knee injury just before half-time was a setback. He is a ferocious competitor and a key player for Scotland, but by then the damage was done, so it didn’t really matter in the context of this match – the big concern is if he is not fit for the two must-win matches Scotland now face against Samoa a week today and Japan on October 13.

There is no massive issue with losing to Ireland. The nature of the defeat is concerning but will be glossed over if Scotland manage to scrabble out of the group.

However, if they slip-up against either Somoa or Japan and plummet out of the competition at the first opportunity then this performance will become one of the sticks used to beat those responsible.

Gregor Townsend has had a charmed existence since moving from mercurial playmaker to innovative coach. Parachuted straight into the Scotland set-up under Andy Robinson, he was then handed a Glasgow Warriors team with a solid base built up by Sean Lineen, to which he added the required pizzazz to win the PRO14 title in 2015.

French clubs started showing interest so SRU Chief Executive Mark Dodson offered him the Scotland job two years later, with Vern Cotter – who had taken Scotland to within a dodgy refereeing decision of a World Cup semi-final in 2015 – rendered surplus to requirements.

His outward charm and commitment to entertaining rugby got him the support of the general rugby public, but the tone on social media has started to turn. The country is not against the Borderer, but they are beginning to question whether he really has the experience and the ruthless edge to command a winning team at the highest level.

Every other Six Nations country is changing their head coach after the World Cup. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that serious pressure might start mounting for Scotland to follow suit.

The Scotland camp had spoken this week about their excitement at playing at a neutral venue, which they presumably hoped would bypass their generally wretched away from – but walking through the streets of Yokohama towards the stadium yesterday it felt like green jerseys outnumbered blue ones by a ratio of 15 or even 20 to one.

Inside the ground, the stands reverberated with one voice as ‘Fields of Athenry’ played on the PA. It might just have been that the next song – ‘500 Miles’ by the Proclaimers – was too fast to be a stadium classic, but more likely there wasn’t enough tartan-clad supporters to generate the same sort of noise.

There was a huge roar of appreciation when the Ireland team broke from a huddle to trot around their half of the pitch before starting their warm-up, and while the Scotland team was read out with barely a murmur of recognition, the name of each Irish hero was greeted with acclaim – and the loudest cheers were reserved for Johnny Sexton, Conor Murray and that great warhorse Rory Best.

Make no mistake about it, this was an Irish crowd in a neutral venue. But that wasn’t the reason Ireland won the game so convincingly. They won because they turned up ready to fight a war. Scotland, we now see, were playing at it. They have eight days to turn things around.