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'There is no one there!': Matt Williams on Scotland's real problem area after Italy loss
By Ben Smith
Ex-Scotland head coach and Irish TV pundit Matt Williams has dissected Scotland’s problem area in the 31-29 loss to Italy which cost Townsend’s side a chance at the Six Nations title.
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With Ireland losing to England later in the evening, Scotland missed a golden opportunity to set up a deciding clash in the final round of the tournament.
Italy’s attacking kicking game exposed a big weakness in the Scots defence, with debutant Louis Lynagh scoring from a well-weighted grubber and centre
Juan Ignacio Brex latching onto a chip kick in the first half.
“While I’ve got some criticism of the Scotland play, I don’t want to take away from how well the Italians played,” Williams said on Virgin Media Sport‘s post-game show.
“I don’t want to get into the ‘Scotland were lousy that’s why Italy won’, they weren’t. They thoroughly deserved that win.
“The Scottish backfield is a real problem. The French kicked through and scored tries, the Italians scored tries. Your conceding soft tries like that, and they were soft because there is no one there!
“If all you got to do is kick through and pick it up, you are going to keep losing. They’ve got to fix that up.
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“The other part of that, we’ve got to give it to the Italians, the Italian defence in the second half was just vastly superior to what it was in the first half.”
Scotland failed to score a point from the 28th minute until three minutes from time as the Italian resolve stuffed the Scotland attack.
There was however one key self-inflicted blunder from Scotland, a blocking call on prop Pierre Schoeman that ruled out a try.
That resulted in a 14-point swing in Italy’s favour when they scored shortly afterward.
“The Scots fell into, what you said at half-time, they tried to put the game away early and they almost did, they thought ‘we’ve got this’, we thought they’ve got this,” Williams explained.
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“And then that crucial turnaround from a Scottish error. Schoeman comes in, takes out an Italian player, now he may be up for an Academy award. It wasn’t a dive but he certainly made it look worse than it was. That was a 14-point turnaround.
“All of a sudden they looked at the clock and thought we’re in trouble. And they were. Then you add the great Italian tackles. Some really great last-ditch tackles that saved tries.
“One-on-one Capuozzo versus Van der Merwe there. Every time you think Van der Merwe would just bump him off. Great one-on-one tackle to save the try.
“It was courageous stuff from the Italians rather than poor Scottish play.”
