6 Nations - Wales too good for poor Scotland

Eurosport - Mon, 09 Feb 10:54:00 2009

Wales opened the defence of their Six Nations title with comfortable 26-13 victory over an out-classed Scotland at Murrayfield.

Jamie Roberts - Wales - 0

Warren Gatland's side, who lost skipper Ryan Jones earlier in the day to a calf injury, scored four tries at Murrayfield for what was their seventh consecutive championship victory.

Wales touched down twice either side of half-time through Tom Shanklin, Alun Wyn-Jones, Leigh Halfpenny and Shane Williams and were clearly the better side until a raft of replacements on the hour saw them take their foot off the pedal.

Scotland, who scored one try late in the game through replacement Max Evans, failed to live up to the promise of their November performances and were in danger of being over-run in the first half by a rampant Wales side.

Their cause was not helped by first-half injuries to wing Simon Webster and debutant prop Geoff Cross, who also earned a yellow card as he took outstanding Wales full-back Lee Byrne out in mid-air while challenging for a high ball.

Both took knocks to the head and left the field, Cross on a stretcher, in the 20th minute.

While the Scots were hesitant and posed little attacking threat at the start, Wales continued their form from last season and the autumn series and the only surprise was they did not cross the Scotland line earlier.

Webster's brave tackle on stand-in skipper Martyn Williams prevented what looked like a certain try, but three minutes later Stephen Jones opened the scoring with a penalty after the dominant Welsh scrum had pushed Scotland off their own ball.

Man-of-the-match Jamie Roberts (pictured) was a constant threat to the Scots midfield and it was just a matter of time before Wales opened their try account.

It came in the 22nd minute after scrum-half Mike Phillips and energetic number eight Andy Powell had set up a good attacking position for Wales deep in Scotland's half. Shane Williams stretched the Scots defence, fed the ball inside to Byrne who put Shanklin over.

Seven minutes later the Welsh pack again destroyed their opponents' scrum. Martyn Williams claimed the ball and fed Stephen Jones, who was tackled a metre short of the try-line. When the ball came back Wyn-Jones was on hand to barge his way over.

Replacement Chris Paterson finally got the Scots on the scoreboard just after the half-hour but Stephen Jones cancelled out his penalty to give Wales a 16-3 half-time lead.

Wales' advantage would have been greater had their fly-half arrived with his kicking boots, but they wasted little time extending their advantage just moments after the interval with their third try.

Roberts again made inroads into the Scots midfield, Shane Williams attacked on the outside and, just as the chance looked to be gone, flipped the ball out a tackle for Halfpenny to dive over in the corner.

Paterson landed his second penalty to cut Wales' lead to 21-6 in the 50th minute, but eight minutes later Roberts was again at the heart of a Welsh attack.

Wales retained possession through several phases before Shane Williams eventually danced over for his 45th international try and Wales' fourth.

The visitors deserved their 26-6 lead and looked set to cut loose against an error-ridden Scots team. But in the 61st minute Gatland made a raft of substitutions and the visitors inevitably lost their shape.

The arrival of Evans gave the Scottish backline far more attacking threat and the Glasgow centre gained his due reward in the 68th minute when he took on Shane Williams on the outside before cutting inside for a lovely try.

Paterson converted the touchline conversion and also had a try disallowed by the television official two minutes from time.

Despite losing Martyn Williams to the sin-bin, Wales held on comfortably for a winning start ahead of their date with England in Cardiff next Saturday.

Scotland travel to Paris and will need to find a much-improved performance if they are to avoid a ninth defeat from their last 10 Six Nations games.

Terence O'Rorke / Eurosport

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  1. If,If,If,If,If...........Blah,BlahBlah..... Scotland­ didnt play as well for three quarters of the game as­ the last quarter, so why make absurd comments about­ them winning IF they had???? They did'nt, so get­ over it! In truth, the only reason they appeared to­ improve was because Wales substituted practically the­ whole team in the 61st minute to keep players fresh­ with a 6 day turnaround to play England. That is not­ arrogance, rather, doing what was needed to keep key­ players as fresh as possible and blooding some less­ experienced players on an international stage.

    From Lee R, on Mon 9 Feb 2:29PM

  2. If Scotland had played the first 3/4 as they did in the­ last 1/4 Wales would have lost thats for sure.

    From john b, on Mon 9 Feb 2:13PM

  3. The England Italy game is not even worth giving a­ comment on. It was like watching school boy rugby to­ say the least. The Irish deserved thier win against­ France because they played the better game . If­ Scotland had played as well in the first half as they­ did in the last 10 mins of the game then it would have­ been a terrific game of ruygby.However being a Welsh­ person I am more than happy with the final outcome,­ even though we did make mistakes. So bring on England!

    From Leanne, on Mon 9 Feb 1:58PM

  4. I thought Hadden was ok at first - but Scotland have a­ potentially exciting back row now - but Hadden played­ 10 Edinburgh players and 2 Glasgow players (Edinburgh­ are mid-table Magners league - behind Glasgow). It­ makes no sense. Hadden has to go and make way for Sean­ Lineen. And by the way Mike Blair is totally over rated­ - and in my opinion not as good as Chris Cusiter. But­ Edinburgh-lover Hadden must now do the decent thing -­ and s*d off.

    From Steve, on Mon 9 Feb 1:07PM

  5. What the BBC need is some cool graphics for the slo mo.­ Like a circle of tweeting birds around Simon­ Webster's head after he collided with Martyn­ Williams!

    From John L, on Mon 9 Feb 12:28PM

  6. England-Italy possibly the worst 6-nations game of all­ time, mainly due to Italy fielding a scrum half who­ would have looked inadequate in the extra-Bs.
    Too easy­ to judge England harshly; not enough opposition to get­ adrenaline flowing, but can you imagine what NZ would­ have done to Italy. They will improve in­ Cardiff.
    Wales long way ahead of Scots this year, so­ hard to say how good they will be against better­ opposition. Equally Scots may do better in later­ matches
    France-Ireland evenly matched, so of course it­ was best game, and they showed their paces. Real test­ for top 3 sides will now be Wales vs Ireland and­ France.

    From John R, on Mon 9 Feb 10:49AM

  7. yeah i watched the game!!france and ireland looked alot­ better than the welsh!! come on ireland!!

    From Louise P, on Mon 9 Feb 10:06AM

  8. The only 2 teams to have a decent match were Ireland­ France.
    Scotland were so poor Wales must be worried.­ Alot of knock ons by Scotland in the Wales half and if­ Patterson had had a bit more luck and Scotland had­ added 7 points to there total would Wales be so­ wonderful. No.
    England took their chances in a bad game­ and came away with 5 trys at least thats something to­ build on.
    Well done again to Ireland and France

    From john b, on Mon 9 Feb 9:40AM

  9. sss

    From orange2tuf, on Mon 9 Feb 9:29AM

  10. Hey, I'm an open minded girl from the US, I'm-­ interested in photography, dating and- sports...I have­ my photos on --- Wealthy Mingle c om ---, I- love hot­ sporty guys!
    Do you love traveling and have some-­ experience? Just find me out.

    From vickisadas2d, on Mon 9 Feb 5:32AM

  11. Kelly Brook and some of her mates need to start dating­ some of the Welsh team. It's our only hope.

    Irish­ will bottle it as usual. Which is strange as most Irish­ are very familar with the bottle.

    From megankipps, on Mon 9 Feb 2:06AM

  12. Alried1612!! Well what can I say about the sheep­ remark. You are an idiot. Take it on the chin laddie­ your team lost, outplayed, outscored and outstanding on­ our part. For 60 minutes at least. If Jones had his­ kicking boots on the scoreline would have been­ humiliating to say the least, so go home and stock up­ on another wooden spoon.

    From TENKO, on Mon 9 Feb 12:40AM

  13. wales did,nt get out of first gear bring on england .­ wales only play half as well and it b 30 points c mon

    From paul.baker89, on Mon 9 Feb 12:00AM

  14. It would appear that 90% of the comments posted are­ focused on one nation @#$% about another, making half­ arsed pathetic insults. There will always be rivalry,­ that is the nature of the beast, but bringing up wars­ etc is ridiculous. This weekend 3 teams won and 3 teams­ lost. At the end of the day Ireland,England and Wales­ outscored France,Italy and Scotland. I.e.... they beat­ their opponents on the day. Impartially, you would have­ to say that Ireland and Wales look strong, you would­ also have to say that France in defeat stil look far­ more dangerous than an English team in dissaray.

    From Lee R, on Sun 8 Feb 11:57PM

  15. Mr T says: Grrrrrrrr!

    From MR T, on Sun 8 Feb 11:45PM

  16. Lets start with ifs and buts , IF we had scored just­ before half time, and chris p had got the ball down­ ,how close a game would that have been ?, AND WE DIDNT­ PLAY WELL ! . But we didnt , well done Wales you did­ just enough, although i think Ireland will take some­ beating this year.

    From l.roberts880, on Sun 8 Feb 11:26PM

  17. ireland will really put it up to wales .. role on ­ cardiff

    From John O, on Sun 8 Feb 10:51PM

  18. Bring on the cast of Gavin & Stacey next week...led­ by Ausralia's very own version of Uncle­ Bryn...
    "Im not going to lie to you, but we are­ going to get a bloody good thrashin' by the­ English, right 'ere in our back­ yard!"
    Wales's no8, Ness pipes up­ "what's occurrin'?"...Uncle Bryn puts­ his arms round her and says "We are getting a­ right royal thumpin' at the hands of our most hated­ but technically superior adversaries"

    From Koppite 1973, on Sun 8 Feb 10:19PM

  19. ehm fed up and scottish

    From James, on Sun 8 Feb 9:46PM

  20. wales had thier good points and bad ones. i think the­ subs were poor. if we have a team lets keep it­ together. it was the wrong time to bleed them

    From perry3ny, on Sun 8 Feb 9:32PM
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