Mon 16 Feb 2015 | 08:42
Wales edge Scotland in tense Test at Murrayfield

29
Comments

Wales picked up their first win of this year's Six Nations with a gritty 26-23 victory over Scotland at Murrayfield. Both sides scored two tries each, and the game ended in controversy as the hosts felt they should have been allowed to continue their fightback.

Scotland scored a late try through Jon Welsh, to add to the early try by Stuart Hogg, but fulltime was blown by referee Glen Jackson when it appeared that there may have still been time on the clock. The loss leaves Scotland without a point from two matches.

"From where I was sitting, there was time to take the kick [restart]," said Scotland's Greig Laidlaw.

"The majority of the stadium seemed to feel the same. Whether we would have gone on to score, that's a different matter. Rome was not built in a day and this team is on a journey with Vern Cotter. I thought the referee forgot how long was on the clock at the end.."

View the final whistle incident

Scoring two tries apiece, with Ryys Webb and Jonathan Davies scoring for Wales, it was the boot of Leigh Halfpenny that ultimately proved the difference between the two sides, with his one extra penalty giving the visitors the edge.

It was Wales' eighth straight victory over Scotland in the Six Nations, but the Scots will take heart from their performance, and coach Vern Cotter, who ironically used to be in charge of Glen Jackson when he was a player, said that he will submit notes on the referees performance.

"We were unconvincing last week and again towards the end today but a win's a win," said Wales lock Alun-Wyn Jones post match. "In the last couple of games we've been unconvincing but credit to Scotland, they never gave up."

Wales are in fourth position on the table, level with France on points but have a worse points deficit. Scotland are second from the bottom, ahead of Italy, with both sides having lost two from two.

29 Comments

  • danknapp
    8:13 AM 19/02/2015

    How do you know that some of the smaller nations aren't just complete filth about yer mum? Eh?

    That's what I'd do. Just saying.

  • danknapp
    8:12 AM 19/02/2015

    Sorry that's not quite right. It's bastards and wankers.

  • kadova
    11:52 PM 18/02/2015

    Thanks alot for your answers ! Next year, if everything goes right, i'll be ready at Murrayfield for the match Scotland-France (fingers crossed).

  • 7:37 PM 18/02/2015

    Borats version of the Kazakhstan anthem has "sweary bits"

  • sportsfan1
    2:38 PM 18/02/2015

    sorry that's not quite right its (a)gainst who not guess who.

    b@stards and w@nkers are both acceptable though ;)

  • jockandy
    10:49 PM 17/02/2015

    "that stood against him"
    "Against who!"

    "Proud Edward's army"
    "W@nkers!"


    Sorry but its true :-)

  • kadova
    8:46 PM 17/02/2015

    Question for Scottish natives, and whoever understands their accent.
    What do the fans shout at the end of "that stood against him" and "proud Edward's army"during their hymn:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pQ5Rem_nzw

    Where I am, nobody understands the same thing. That goes from "Scotland", "that's Scotland", to "England" and even "against who", lol.

  • browner
    4:08 PM 17/02/2015

    On RugbyDumps video the try is awarded at 79.15

    30seconds is incorrect !!

    ..Law 9B (e) says "The kicker must take the kick within one minute and thirty seconds (ninety seconds) from the time a try has been awarded"

    The conversion was awarded at 79.57 on the same video clock.

  • 1:17 AM 17/02/2015

    Not sure about the clock going dead for a try? Doesn't for a penalty. Russell should tried a droppie. So what if he misses? They still needed to score the try to win. Not kicking penalties was dumb too. Kick one, get ball back and challenge again, score try, get ball back and threaten 3 ways to win.

  • 1:13 AM 17/02/2015

    Build on what? That was unimpressive. At this rate they won't be leaving their pool next year

  • 1:11 AM 17/02/2015

    Check again... Just because

  • coostov
    1:06 AM 17/02/2015

    This new video player on Rugbydump is horrible. Can we switch back to the old Youtube player?

  • jonnyenglish
    12:44 AM 17/02/2015

    I kind of agree and kind of don't, normally its not given until the ball is actually dead, as opposed to when it crosses the posts, it has to cross the dead ball line. But that being said, there have been SO many occasions where the ref has stopped the clock when the balls crossed and allowed play to carry on. I remember Nigel Owens saying "Can we have 30 more seconds on the clock please?" for some reason.

  • drg
    10:49 PM 16/02/2015

    Something is wrong with your tv then, the pundits replayed the whole thing and saw the clock was at 79:54 (or 56?) when the ball went over...

  • kadova
    9:28 PM 16/02/2015

    I mean win more games...

  • kadova
    9:27 PM 16/02/2015

    I agree with you, the Welsh should have been yellow carded for repeated faults. Even the BBC were asking for a yellow.
    Sad the Scots loose, but i believe in Vern Cotter, after what he did for the Clermont club, he will make them win games, and in an enjoyable fashion.

  • tphillipsstl
    9:26 PM 16/02/2015

    The refereeing wa terrible, but evenly so. There were constant poor decisions (both penalties called and missed) around the breakdown. In regard to the specific call at the end, that was correct. The clock went red (on TV anyway) before the conversion was kicked. I was shocked at how long the scottish kicker took to make the attempt. Had he hurried there would have been time for the restart. Now, had he kicked it before the clock hit 80min and then the ref allowed Wales to stall and run the clock out without restarting, that would be a shame. But that's not what happened as far as we could tell watching at home.

  • 7:24 PM 16/02/2015

    Brilliant performance by Scotland, don't worry guys your day will come.
    Also Murryfield, ok it's shit weather, but when the second verse of Flower of scotlands starts, with no bag pipes,...just the crowd and players singing...that is brilliant. That is rugby. Team and crowd together.

    Cuthbert should be dropped for Williams (with North at 11). And Wales's counter-rucking was once again great. Alun wyn, Warburton, Jenkins, Lydiate and Talupe were immense in that area.

    I thought Richie Gray was a bit shite, I would start Hamilton with Jonny Gray.
    Anyway best match this weekend!

  • drg
    7:18 PM 16/02/2015

    I find this very difficult...

    1. For me Wales deserved the win because Scotland DIDN'T take the opportunities available...

    However,

    2. For me Scotland deserved the win because they played more enjoyable rugby and NEARLY had the win etc..

    However (again) I'm still more pulled towards Scotland, because I felt Scotland were very hard done by with some refereeing decisions... Jonathan Davies (the ex player) said numerous times that he can't understand why a Welsh player had not been carded for the repeat infringements in their own 22... Then there was the 'high tackle' that he himself suggested should have resulted in a penalty try... Etc...

    So for those reasons I feel Scotland should have a right to feel aggrieved..

  • reality
    7:04 PM 16/02/2015

    In that situation the referee should just take charge though. I've seen that a load of times by now where after a few replays on the big screen the referee just says, "I've seen enough. My call is X". Leaving it up to Sloth McDowell just wastes time.

  • cragdoo
    5:38 PM 16/02/2015

    Just read that Russell has been cited... what an absolute joke.

  • jonnyenglish
    2:59 PM 16/02/2015

    As you can probably guess, I'm an England fan and was impartial, really I thought Scotland missed that final clinical cutting edge that Wales seem to have at the moment. I do think that Jonathan Davies was running a blocking line, especially if he hadn't have been there, ahead of the ball carrier, the try may not have been scored. The only thing that was bad about his line was that if he'd been passed the ball, from that camera angle at least, Jonathan Davies was about half a yard ahead and therefore it'd have been a forward pass.

    The time stopping at the try is wrong though, in the laws you have 30 seconds to take a conversion, the clock should've been stopped when the ball went dead, which would've left about a second on the clock for Scotland to do something, anything, but alas we'll never know.

    My final reply? What a weird performance by the ref, got a couple of hard calls bang on, but by God, there were some dodgy shouts there to!

  • cragdoo
    2:43 PM 16/02/2015

    So many Welsh infringements , e.g. high tackle on Visser before 1st Welsh try, 'no-handed' tackles etc , 'missed' by a clearly incompetent referee.

  • cragdoo
    2:41 PM 16/02/2015

    Hamilton was trying to get the ball back to allow Russell to take the conversion quickly, but was prevented from doing so, hence the reason he lashed out.

  • crumblewolf
    2:12 PM 16/02/2015

    Neither of them was a red. Both the exact same offence but Russels looked worse as he didn't jump and took out Dan bigger who was at full momentum. Jonathan Davies could have probably gotten away with his collision as a penalty (as it didn't look as bad) any other time but as one card had already been given for the exact same offence ref had no option but to also show him the card. No complaints about either from me. No malice in either attempt just clumsy from both.

  • stroudos
    12:12 PM 16/02/2015

    Tam, the only bizarre thing about that was how long the TMO took to decide! I've heard this bloke before though, he's terrible. Simon O'Dowell I think his name is. So laboured and then vague in his decision-making. I've seen games with real momentum really disrupted by this bloke taking an eternity to make a simple call.

    In this case, you could see Glen Jackson (ref), who could see the replay on the big screen, trying to restrain himself from saying something like "jesus, Simon, it's the most blatant obstruction in the history of the game, what's taking you so long!?". In fact, I'm pretty sure Barnesy would have said that.


  • crumblewolf
    11:14 AM 16/02/2015

    As a Welsh supporter I'm glad Wales won but Scotland did play the more exciting Rugby while they had the ball.

    IMO both yellow card were justified, Jonathan Davies should have had a little more sense just 5 minutes after a Scottish player was carded for doing the exact same thing. There probably should have been one or two more cards in the game for all the penalties conceded by both Scotland and wales in their own 22.

    Wales try disallowed after being given was the right decision (even if I wanted it to still count).

    Can someone explain the Scottish disallowed try when it was brought back for a high tackle? Surely if that was a high tackle it was a try saving illegal tackle and thus should have been a card for Rhys Webb? Looking at the replays at the time it looked like the Scottish player was ducking down as Rhys Webb cam flying across so I didn't think it was that high.

    As for the game ending early, seems to be a lot of confusion with that. Did the clock in the stadium say a slightly different time? That's the only reason I can think of why Scotland took their time converting. In all honesty with 4 seconds left Scotland could have scored but I think its unlikely (I'm biased though :P ).

    Also something else, when Wales scored their first try, Jonathan Davies was tackled without the ball as a supporting player. If that try hadn't been scored (due to no support player) it would also have been an illegal try saving tackle and (possibly) a card. As Scotland did still take him out should it not still be a card? As the act of tackling the player occurred in a try scoring opportunity despite the try still being scored? My immediate thought was should that not be a yellow?

    Anyway despite the controversy a win is a win for Wales. We need to focus now on the tough game against France.

  • shadydave
    10:51 AM 16/02/2015

    Some very dubious decisions and Scot's have a right to feel agrieved. Wales need to build on this win for a very tough match in France.

  • welshosprey
    10:37 AM 16/02/2015

    That Russell yellow should have been a straight red card. Another poor performance from us, relying on the same terrible power gameplan. Cuthbert needs to be dropped now, simple as that.