Defensive discord worrying for Scotland in chaotic 11-try win over Samoa
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Scotland prevailed in a 'surreal' 11-try contest with Samoa at Murrayfield
It's just as well that Gregor Townsend isn't in the habit of punching the window of the coach's box at Murrayfield a la Andy Robinson and, on occasion, Vern Cotter.
If fury was part of his DNA in the way it was with some of his predecessors then the sound of breaking glass would have been audible on the other side of Edinburgh.
In the aftermath of this inadequate victory over Samoa, one of the Scotland players said in a pitch-side interview that he was just happy to get the win. You could see where he was coming from given that his team had held a 22-point lead after 46 minutes and had seen all but six points of it evaporate by the end.
In a different era, when Scottish teams had to fight like dogs to get any win, it would have been an understandable comment from a player. Not anymore. We like to hold Scotland to a higher standard now.
After the loss to Fiji in the summer, John Barclay, the captain, summed up the performance pretty succinctly. "Rubbish," he said. And he was right. Saturday was different in that it was a win, as opposed to the loss in Fiji, but a repeat of Barclay's damning summation from Suva wouldn't have been out of place.
Wing Chris Harris, props Darryl Marfo and Jamie Bhatti, and hooker George Turner all made their Scotland debuts
Nobody expects Scotland to be better than rugby's superpowers, but everybody expects them to be better than they were on Saturday.
Of course, it was the first Test of the season and they were rusty and they had injuries. You can only spin that line so far. It was the first Test for Ireland as well and they dynamited the Springboks. It was the first Test for Wales and they played admirably in defeat against the Wallabies.
Stirring effort from Samoa
And Samoa? It was their first Test in four months played out against a backdrop of extreme turbulence in their dishevelled rugby union.
Scotland have things that Samoa can only dream of. Stability, training camps, Tests. Before Saturday, Samoa had played 10 internationals since they last faced Scotland at the World Cup in 2015. Scotland had played 19. Of Samoa's 10, only three had come against Tier One nations. Fifteen of Scotland's 19 were against the game's strongest sides.
Samoa deserve massive credit for what went down at Murrayfield. Lord knows what they might be capable of if the sport ever allowed them to play in an elite competition every year.
Samoa's players rallied at the end of a week in which their union was declared bankrupt
Their entire build-up was dominated by their myriad problems off the field, the chronic financial state of their rugby union and the fears of what the administrative chaos might mean to them as international players.
They weren't making a big deal of it, but in scoring double the points total that Australia managed against Scotland in the summer and almost three times the number that Wales scored at Murrayfield in the Six Nations, they had cause to be proud. They were seemingly dead and buried and then rose up and took it to the wire.
Defensive discord
For all the Scotland tries, all the Scotland new caps and all the Scotland supporters, who turned up in historically high numbers for a Test of this kind, this was a disconcerting day, a day when Samoa scored more points than they have done in any game in five years and when Scotland's defence gave up more points than it has ever conceded against a Tier Two nation.
The nature of it was surreal, particularly in a second half that would have had Townsend and his defence coach, Matt Taylor, looking on aghast at times. Scotland scored through Stuart McInally and then conceded four minutes later. They scored again, through Alex Dunbar, and conceded two minutes afterwards. They struck once more through Peter Horne only to give away another score within three minutes.
Scotland shipped five tries against Samoa
Samoa's tries weren't the product of genius in their backline. They were simple pick-and-go's from the forward pack. Some of them had origins in Scotland's inability to deal with restarts. Twice they messed up and twice they ended up behind their own sticks wondering what the hell was going on.
Stuart Hogg said that Taylor had let his displeasure be known in the dressing room. How? By saying little or nothing. Maybe Taylor was using the silence as a technique or maybe he was just too stunned to open his mouth. Either way, Scotland's defence was lamentable.
New Zealand up next
On top of the 27 points shipped in Fiji on the summer tour we now add another 38 against Samoa and we begin to worry because New Zealand are coming down the tracks on Saturday and rugby's own version of hell will be unleashed if Scotland's defence is anything like the soft touch it was against Samoa.
In the summer, the All Blacks took 78 points off Samoa. They conceded the grand total of zero. On Saturday night, they went to Paris and had the game sewn up by half-time, eventually winning 38-18. They've scored 446 points in their dozen Tests in 2017.
Prop WP Nel withdrew injured after just 32 minutes of Saturday's match
The sight of the black jersey and the fear of a hiding will focus Scottish minds this week, but Townsend has some anxious hours ahead as he waits for, probably bad news, on the injury to WP Nel that forced him out of the game early on Saturday.
The plague on Scotland's front-rows that's already claimed Alasdair Dickinson, Gordon Reid, Allan Dell, Fraser Brown and Ross Ford might have collared another victim in Nel. Meanwhile, New Zealand are on their way like the biggest of juggernauts.
Last time they were here, it was a proper Test match, a contest that Scotland ended up losing by just eight points. Their only hope of getting near that level again is if the passivity of Saturday fades away and the belligerence of earlier in the year returns. Either that or it's calculator time.