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Scotland 'expected' to beat Australia: 4 Murrayfield talking points
By Bryn Palmer
As Australia’s Grand Slam hopes died on a raucous Murrayfield afternoon, Scotland’s fourth win in five meetings with the Wallabies under Gregor Townsend gave their supporters a huge fillip ahead of next year’s Six Nations Championship.
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RugbyPass assesses the main talking points to emerge from Scotland’s 27-13 victory.
Scotland expected to win and feel ‘there is more to come’
You could argue that Scotland, ranked sixth in the world, should have fancied themselves to beat a team ranked two places below them in the rankings, but Australia’s wins over England and Wales had certainly raised the stakes leading into the game.
But home captain Sione Tuipulotu, who enjoyed a dream moment against his country of birth by scoring the opening try, insisted the Scots had never doubted their ability to end the Wallabies’ ‘Grand Slam’ aspirations.
“Throughout the week, we were pretty confident that we were a better team than this Wallaby team,” said the Glasgow centre. “I’m not too sure if it’s an upset or something like that, but we were very confident that we were going to be the better team.
“It’s a good win, but I don’t think it’s the best win or anything. We definitely didn’t expect them to beat them easily, but we didn’t really feel like they had played a defensive team like us and we also didn’t feel like they had played an attacking team like us. We were very confident during the week.
“We knew they were going to come in with confidence as well, but we knew once we got into the game that we could make them feel pretty uncomfortable with our defence especially. We’re looking forward to the Six Nations now.”
Shortly after his opening try, Tuipulotu was the victim of a thumping hit from Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii, with the rugby league convert forced to leave the fray after 30 minutes, with some word from Tuipulotu ringing in his ears.
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“I didn’t really know it was him that hit me,” he said. “It felt humongous. And when I popped up, I was just kind of looking around at who it was and then I saw that he was on the ground, so I said something to him and then he went off the pitch. That’s all I can really say about it.”
Tuipulotu believes that despite a 14-point win over in-form opponents, Scotland should have won by more as they look to take this form into the Six Nations and launch a long-awaited challenge for the title.
“We’re really happy with that win, but I think the scary thing for this group is that’s probably just a six or seven out of 10 performance against a pretty good team. We’re the ones on the training ground who see what we can pull off.
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“It’s just about cleaning up the few errors that we had in that game. I actually think that scoreline could have been a lot bigger. We made a lot of errors on our set-piece and stuff like that when we were clean through.
“If we can clean up those things and maybe be a bit more ruthless with our set-piece in the finish zone – we had a couple of lost lineouts there – we’re a pretty dangerous team.”
Scotland have the physicality and fitness to mix it with the best
Despite this rousing end to their autumn campaign, head coach Gregor Townsend believes their performance in the 32-15 defeat by South Africa a fortnight ago was actually “still the best performance” of the last month.
“The physicality, the effort, and responding to losing a man for 20 minutes, that was up there with (our win over) England at Twickenham last year,” Townsend said.
“Today was slightly off, but it didn’t knock us off our stride in that second half. It meant that even though it hadn’t been a great first half, we still produced what was needed in the second half. That was pleasing, but there’s more to come from this group.”
One of the most impressive aspects of Scotland’s display was the way they defended the powerful Australian maul, which had caused havoc against Wales the previous week, accounting for three of their tries.
“We were very effective with our maul defence, like we had been against South Africa,” Townsend noted. “That’s important. That last image, or last sequence of play, is important to us too. The game was won, it was into 80 minutes, but we still defended our try line with everything. That was great to see.
“Our fitness, with the guys from the bench but also the starters, meant we outworked the defence and that created opportunities for us.”
With three wins from four across November and two home games – against Italy and Ireland – to start their Six Nations campaign, Townsend believes his side are ready to ‘kick on’ in the new year.
“It has been for a while,” he said. “The frustrations of the Six Nations – to be in every game and potentially win every game and not come through with more than two wins – that shows that they were ready back then.
“I believe that experience has made us better too. Certainly, a few things that we learned from that campaign, off-field, on-field, something tactically, technically, but also how we have to grow as a group mentally. I think we’ve seen that in this campaign and we’ve got to grow again in the next one, which is obviously the Six Nations.”
Australia can reap rewards of adapting in adversity against Lions
With only next week’s final Test of their UK tour against Ireland, and one possible warm-up game at home next July, to come before the Wallabies face the British & Irish Lions next summer, Scotland’s win – and the manner of it – might have helped Andy Farrell as he starts to assess the tactics and personnel required to win the 2025 series.
Joe Schmidt was asked if he thought his side would be facing Sione Tuipulotu again next year, but suggested that he faces a battle to make the Lions squad given the options available to Farrell elsewhere in the home unions.
“Big ask,” was Schmidt’s response. “I think there are some really good players around. It’s not for me to name Faz’s team for him. I’d obviously be a bit of a fan of Bundee Aki. Ollie Lawrence has had a good year. Henry Slade’s got great experience.
“I thought Huw Jones, as well as Sione, are a good one-two for Scotland in their midfield. I’ve no doubt Scotland will contribute a number of players and there’s some guys who played really well in that game today. They’re a tough team.”
Schmidt’s main concern, regardless of the result in Dublin next week, is ensuring his own squad are in the right places physically and mentally to make the series a competitive one.
“What I’m hoping is that people do see it as a real contest next July, because I think we’re building a little bit of momentum,” he said.
“I always said from the start it would never be linear, because high performance just isn’t. There’s going to be days where it doesn’t go as well as you’d like it to go.”
Australia lost hooker Matt Faessler, who scored a hat-trick against Wales last week, the day before the game with an injury and lock Jeremy Williams on the morning of the match through illness. They also then lost centre Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii after 30 minutes, the cross-code convert injuring himself in the act of a thumping tackle on Tuipulotu, causing a backline reshuffle.
“I think it’s great,” Schmidt added of needing to adapt in adversity. “I think you’ve got to be able to learn to roll with those punches. We didn’t get a couple of decisions in that first quarter that we’ve got to be able to cope with, so it’s a good learning experience for what is still a pretty young team.
“There are no excuses, just reasons for why we were a little bit out of kilter. We lacked a bit of our cohesion from the last two weeks, losing a couple of guys, a hooker and a lock, in the lead-up. I thought on the back of that our start was still really positive, so there are no excuses.
“We’ve got to be able to cope with an interrupted build-up and still deliver on the day, and to be fair to the players, I felt they still delivered a very good performance against a very good team. It’s just that very good’s not good enough against Scotland at the moment, because they’re a very good team.”
Schmidt is relishing his return to the Fair City
Australia enjoyed 80 per cent possession and territory in the opening 11 minutes at Murrayfield, but only had a Noah Lolesio penalty to show for their early endeavours.
A similar lack of ruthlessness against Ireland, who he coached to three Six Nations titles including a Grand Slam in 2018, after previously leading Leinster to two European crowns, could well yield an even bigger defeat than his side suffered here.
Schmidt will hope to have some reinforcements for the Dublin encounter with prop Taniela Tupou among those likely to return to the frontline.
“I’m really excited about getting back. I don’t know about being love-bombed, though.
I coached against them a couple of times at the All Blacks and I think I was pretty unpopular there.
“I’ll swap sides again and there’ll be a degree of unpopularity, but the way my family and I were looked after in Dublin was fantastic, and right around Ireland.
“It’s a special place for us, obviously. We still have a home there and a daughter. I’m looking forward to catching up with her, actually, as well.
“It’ll be a nice week to get back there, but there’s only one game in town and that’s all about the footy and trying to help these guys prepare as best they can.
“We’ll take stock tomorrow, get onto the field on Tuesday and Thursday with the bodies that we have got,” he said. “We’ve got confidence in the guys who are in the squad, we just probably lacked a bit of experience, and that was probably evident today.
“There were a few times where I felt we probably could have converted better if we just kept a little bit more of our structure in what we were doing, rather than maybe just over-chasing things a little bit.”
Go behind the scenes of both camps during the British and Irish Lions tour of South Africa in 2021. Binge watch exclusively on RugbyPass TV now
As a neutral fan, watching the Russell-Tuipulotu-Jones axis is a treat. Those guys are on another level, most likely the world’s best 10-12-13 combo attack-wise.
Also, it was heart-warming to see Tuipulotu’s grandma and mom watch their boy score a try and play great in a winning game. They must have been filled with pride.
Says no excuses then rattles off a list of excuses called reasons.