YESTERDAY'S match in Rome was all about whether Scotland were going to play to win or whether they were going to play not to lose, and in the end it was a mixed bag of a performance. Ultimately, however, it was the errors by the players which resulted in the defeat.
It has to be one of the most frustrating losses by Scotland in recent times, and unfortunately that has to be linked to the performance of Dan Parks who I know will have been bitterly disappointed by his own display. He's thick-skinned and can take t
he criticism, but he and other players will have to realise that when you put on a Scottish jersey, you have to play at the highest level with some consistency or you cannot continue to be in the team.
He played extremely well for Glasgow and in last year's World Cup and he has not had the best of luck, but he clearly has not had a good tournament despite doing some fine work at times. One or two of his kicks yesterday were good but overall he did not play well at all. To allow Scotland to move on, he must be given time out.
Yet we cannot put the blame on one player. It was always going to be a tight game and it was always going to turn on mistakes. Unfortunately Scotland's errors came back to haunt them.
The opening 20 minutes was poor, especially up front in the scrums, and there was little possession for Scotland, but when they did start to take control in the second quarter it resulted in Ally Hogg's superbly worked try which was really the first time that Scotland had developed their phases of possession.
When Scotland were patient and when they did not force the game, they made a real impact on Italy. They started to open up and to offload the ball very well and for a time they looked ready to dominate the game.
There were also some very positive performances from the likes of Ally Strokosch and from Nathan Hines and Scott MacLeod. Obviously the injury to Simon Danielli caused a reshuffle in the backs but I don't think that caused too many problems especially as I believe Simon Webster's best position is out on the wing where he can play both as an out-and-out winger and as someone who can make useful intrusions inside.
Graeme Morrison had a reasonable game as did Ally Hogg, while Mike Blair's sharpness around the base of the ruck was never better displayed than in his try under the posts.
I thought Scotland would go on and win from there but the errors began to creep into their game in the second half and that allowed Italy to make inroads.
There's not much more I can say about Chris Paterson that hasn't already been said in terms of his goal kicking but yesterday I felt that some of his kicking from hand was poor, especially when the Italian pressure came on, and there were other wayward kicks from the likes of Simon Taylor which helped turn the game Italy's way.
I'm no expert on the intricacies of scrummage play but clearly we were under the cosh yesterday, especially in that opening quarter and the front five will be disappointed at their display.
In general, international rugby is about how you cope with the pressure, especially when mistakes are made, and at the moment the Scottish team just doesn't seem to have the confidence to overcome their mistakes and move on. There are some very tough tasks ahead with the two matches in Argentina against a big powerful side similar to the Italians, before the Autumn Test Series. We need to get back to the sort of attitude that was shown against England.
The full article contains 655 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
