Dewald Nel
Cyril Towers (30)
OK, finally watched the game in full last night
My thoughts?
Aus weren't mentally "on" in defence, they were passive, not aggressive for long periods and looked flat. We really lacked defensive sting and that made turnovers harder to come by, and that meant the Scots had more opportunities for field position and pressure. Fix the attitude to defense and we will be a much more formidable team in the match.
That may have been subconsciously from the ease their attack was carving up the Scots when they got into their 22. Our attacking structure worked well, pulling in defensive units and then we attacked the edge and leveraged the overlap. We did leave two clear bombed tries as well
The game looked like a few Tahs games in the last three years, where we looked like we were going to score 60, scored early and never mentally were prepared to do what was required to blot them out and go on with it.
The Scots kept pressuring and deserved to turn that pressure into points, their two opensides blotted out our attack, their scrum caused grief and they kept in the game.
I thought Foley must have had an absolute nightmare reading the posts, while not perfect (he missed some hard conversions and had a charge down) he did do pretty well at working with Gits to direct play
Slipper? In 100 other matches he would never have
thrown that pass, he will never do it again either
Aus were bound to have an off game somewhere. Rather in the quarters against Scotland than against the Argies in a semi.
The wake-up call alone may be responsible for getting into the final.