A slew of red-zone possession in the dying minutes at Murrayfield. Eleven – yes, eleven – line-breaks against Wales with far too little to show for it. A 5m lineout against the French to win it. France, Wales, and now Scotland, off the hook. They’re in that horrible near-miss stage which befalls almost every side that ever amounted to something. This is a team with star quality and immense potential, underpinned as they are by a young core a domestic pathway which continues to excavate talent. It seems utterly cruel that Italy will be saddled with the wooden spoon after a championship to which they gave so much. Feelgood was restored to Murrayfield and its supporters. They gave some of the world’s finest teams palpitations with the way they attacked in ferocious blue squadrons. They have backed up their stunning success in Cardiff last year with big wins over Australia and Samoa in the autumn, and bigger performances still this spring. The gallant losers shtick is one of the grimmest and most patronising tags in sport, but it sure as hell beats ‘whipping boys’ which, up until recently, Italy were. We’ll get to Scotland in a moment, but first, a word for the Azzurri. They dropped ball after ball, got done at the breakdown, failed to knock a dangerous Italian side out altogether and were a whisker away from paying the price. Scotland were loose, careless and downright sloppy in a way they weren’t for any of the previous four matches. A potentially devastating defeat became a bonus-point victory.Īn apt ending for this campaign, even if much of the preceding 79 minutes were anything but. A Scottish scrum, and a searing, bewitching 100-yard dash started by Duhan van der Merwe and anchored by the long-striding Blair Kinghorn. A loss that would erode so much of the feelgood built up over the tournament. Scotland, having frittered away a 13-point lead and masses of momentum, teetering beneath a flurry of Italian punches, an improbable and shocking defeat looming. Murrayfield bonkerdom to cap a championship of riveting ebbs and flows. As finales go, this was blissfully, crazily Scottish.
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