Scotland v Australia: Hosts strike right tone in aftermath of win
Published 25 November 2024
In the wake of Scotland's impressive win over Australia on Sunday, head coach Gregor Townsend and his players were keeping it real.
Such was their happy but hardly euphoric reaction, it was if they had all taken a collective vow of restraint.
Townsend said the performance in defeat against South Africa was better than the 14-point victory over the Wallabies. Captain Sione Tuipulotu called it a six or seven out of 10.
Other players lined up to talk, yes, about the flamboyance of the second half but also about the chances missed, errors made and lessons that need to be learned if they are to be taken seriously as Six Nations contenders.
Time was, under a different captain, when this kind of win might have sparked an epidemic of giddiness. Unless they were having us on, there was none of that.
And it was heartening. As exhilarating as it was to see Scotland go for Australia's jugular in a ruthless second half, there was nothing really surprising about it, nothing that we had not seen before.
The dizzying tempo, line breaks, offloads and fantastic sweep of their attacking game as they accelerated out of sight was typical of Townsend's team at their best. But there was context.
They were at home, playing against a Wallabies side who grew tried and fell off tackles at the end of their season, facing an opponent only at the foothills of their journey under Joe Schmidt despite what Twickenham and Principality wins suggested.
Scotland had 690 caps in their starting line-up to Australia's 406, a squad average age of 27.3 to Australia's 25.7. They had experience and settled partnerships, the kind of cohesion that Schmidt refers to as the sweet spot. Scotland's power and class told in the end. Tupulotu said, matter of factly, he was always confident it would.