Townsend’s choice backfires
Many of us praised Gregor Townsend for his bold choices in the Italian game, but the gamble didn’t pay off at the Stadio Olimpico.
The decision to leave Blair Kinghorn, Darcy Graham and Duhan van der Merwe out of the starting XV is understandable given the stellar performances of Tom Jordan, Jamie Dobie and Keir Steyn.
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However, the unfamiliar back three was exposed by Italy who clearly targeted this area.
Their positional sense was called into question on both of Italy’s attempts, as they failed to win aerial battles and found little attack.
It will be interesting to see what changes Townsend makes to his back three against England.
Rain in Rome is no excuse for performance
When looking for reasons for Scotland’s poor performance, it’s easy to point the finger at biblical rainfall, but that’s not the case.
The first 20 minutes of the game were pretty good, and it was during this period that Italy finally won the game.
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The Blue Jackets set the agenda defensively, playing a dominant attack and defending with an intensity sorely lacking in Scotland’s contact work.
In short, Italy looks like they want it more.
Set piece struggle
It’s difficult to set the stage for winning a Test match without an effective set-piece, and Scotland were all over the place in that regard.
Ewan Ashman really set the tone with three missed lineouts early on. These were opportunities for Scotland to really take control of the game, but wasting such promising attacking positions seemed to dent Scotland’s confidence while giving Italy and its fans a boost.
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Again, the outgoing error cannot be entirely blamed on the weather. There seemed to be confusion among the throwers, lifters and jumpers as to what was going on. At the highest levels, this is inexcusable.