The Observer Sport February 13 2022
Rugby unionGuinness Six Nations
Unappable Biggar holds his nerve to bring Scotland back down to earth
Wales’s captain steps up to settle back-and-forth battle and give his side lift-off after opening defeat by Ireland
So Wales are not quite as bad as we thought , Scotland not nearly as consistent as they would like. After
opening weekends of contrasting for-tunes, the two played out a thriller, the
sort of edgy dramatic event on which this championship prides itself.
Dan Biggar, on his 100th cap, stepped up – insofar as his injured knee would allow – to land a drop goal with 10 minutes to go which
proved the winner . He did it while his opposite number, Finn Russell, every
bit as much a talisman for Scotland as
Biggar is for Wales, was in the sin bin
after a knock-on that was judged to
be deliberate. Scotland, having played
most of the match with their usual combination of brio and class, fell
away sharply thereafter. The nal 10
minutes saw them haunted and error-
prone while Wales grew all the larger.
Alas, there had to be a loser. Scotland feel those familiar pangs
again, seemingly all the more famil-iar after the giddy heights of victory. But regardless of the highs and lows of individual fortunes, this was a tes-
tament to the competitive vigour of
The bookies had rated the match closer than opinion at large seemed to. Form-wise there ought to have
been only one team in it – and it was
not the team in red, so used to pre-vailing here over the one in blue. Scotland won on their last visit to
Wales but that was in an empty sta-dium in Llanelli on account of Covid.
In Cardiff Wales tend to play like a dif-
ferent beast . Hence the ranking for
Scotland of only narrow favourites.
The virus had not nished with
proceedings . The roof had to remain
open for cleaner air, giving the rain
more chance to affect the match . That might have suited Scotland with their
muscular pack and efcient line out
but, if the opening passage was any-thing to go by, neither side was fazed by the elements. Matt Fagerson and Stuart McInally sparked an early period of attack for
Scotland. Deep in Wales’s 22 Liam Williams managed to pilfer the ball
and away Wales went, Owen Watkin
dummying and stepping his way deep
into Scottish territory. Stuart Hogg was quite lucky not to be penalised
for a deliberate knock-on himself but
from the scrum Wales were rewarded
with a penalty anyway and Biggar
opened the scoring in the fth min-
ute . A few minutes later he kicked
another after Sam Skinner was caught
on the wrong side of a tackle.
But Scotland’s class these days is not fragile, as it used to be. They responded with the game’s rst try with one winger, Duhan van der Merwe, breaking down the left and the other, 18 phases later, scoring
down the right. Russell’s cut-out pass
to Darcy Graham was sublime and Graham’s nish was brilliant past a
much bigger man. Russell missed the
conversion but two penalties from his boot moved Scotland ve points clear
at the end of the rst quarter. One of Wales’s more capped play-
ers is Tomas Francis. The tighthead anchored a scrum that more than
held its own and threw himself about with gusto in defence. What is more,
he built his part up further with a rare try. A brilliant kick from another player of much experience, Liam Williams, set up the Welsh for
a spell in Scotland’s 22. When Biggar
sent a penalty to the corner in the
middle of it, Francis rolled off the side
of the driven line out to bring Wales
Just before that Scotland had lost
Fagerson to injury to disrupt further a back row that had lost Jamie Ritchie the week before. Wales, too, had their disruptions with the experienced trio
of Wyn Jones, Biggar and Williams repeatedly requiring treatment . Russell and Biggar exchanged pen-
alties in the third quarter to maintain
the tension before the game turned as
the last 10 minutes approached. A long-range penalty by Biggar hit
the bar and bounced back into the arms of Alex Cuthbert. Wales ham-
mered away in the Scotland 22 until Russell knocked the ball on as Wales
whipped it across him. Cuthbert gathered and was away to the cor-
ner for what looked like a try. Closer
inspection revealed a foot in touch, which meant closer inspection for
Russell’s knock-on. If Hogg’s in the rst half had been
deemed just a scrum, it is difcult
to see why this one was not. Russell
looked as if he could have caught it
but such attempts are always a gam-ble in one’s own 22. This was not the
rst of Russell’s to backre. He saw
yellow and Wales set up camp in the
corner. Two line outs followed. Having sent those two penalties to the corner,
Biggar decided three points might be useful after all. His drop goal proved the decisive act. The parallels with Scotland’s game the previous Saturday were uncanny.
Same score, a tight game that could have gone either way, an influen-tial yellow card and the underdog prevailing at home. Never mind the euphoria and agony of a result .
These speak of a championship more vibrant than ever.
Ireland 29 Wales 7; Scotland 20 England 17; France 37 Italy 10; Wales 20 Scotland 17; France 30 Ireland 24
More questions than answers ina Cardiff dogght
Five minutes before the half-time break, Scotland had the put-in to a scrum inside Welsh territory. After three phases Wales turned the ball over and began a charge upeld through the relentless Taine Basham. Liam Williams soon had it and exchanged several innocuous kicks with Stuart Hogg. Wales kept possession but coughed it up a minute later as it was Scotland’s turn to win the breakdown battle and regain control. Not that they did much with it. Several phases down the road and very little had changed.This brief segment encapsulated so much of the contest. Wales’s forwards made massive strides from their defeat to Ireland last week, carrying with intensity and testing Scotland’s defence around the tighter channels. They also surprised with their prociency in the lineout, matching Scotland’s better-resourced set
L Williams; Cuthbert, Watkin, Tompkins (J Davies 68), Rees-Zammit; Biggar (capt; Sheedy 79), T Williams; W Jones (Thomas 65), Elias (Lake 65), Francis (Lewis 60), Rowlands (S Davies 76), Beard, Basham, Morgan, Moriarty (Wainwright 58)
BiggarHogg (capt); Graham, Harris, Tuipulotu (Kinghorn 71), Van der Merwe (Redpath 79); Russell, Price (White 63); Schoeman (Sutherland 45; Schoeman 63), McInally (Turner 45), Nel (Z Fagerson 45), J Gray (Darge 63), Gilchrist, Skinner, Watson, M Fagerson (Bradbury 32)
Raw strength of both Wales and Scotland in doubt after a bitty encounter of little cohesion, writes