Scotland 15-16 Australia: Blair Kinghorn unfairly haunted by ghost of Finn Russell
- Published
Blair Kinghorn scored a try but missed a last-gasp penalty to earn Scotland victory
With 10 minutes left on the clock at Murrayfield on Saturday, Scotland held a two-point lead and, more importantly, they had momentum.
Fly-half Blair Kinghorn, not long after bringing a mostly subdued crowd to its feet with his try, was testing the Wallabies. Not everything he was doing was coming off but he was asking different types of questions with the breadth of his distribution.
For one split second in a crowd of 67,000 Finnites, somebody in Row Z of the south stand might have forgotten about the existence of the Racing man, although that report is as yet unverified.
It's grossly unfair, but everything that Kinghorn does while wearing the 10 jersey is going to be seen through a Russell prism, even when, on days like this, Russell wouldn't have been available even if Gregor Townsend had included him in his squad.
This is going to be the way of it for Kinghorn until Russell returns to the fold. If he returns to the fold. There is a gathering sense that this set-up isn't big enough for player and coach. Although we said that the last time as well.
He should be there this week, of course. Instead, he'll be the ghost of Murrayfield. There in spirit if not in person. An omnipresence. Form and consistency is the reason given for his exclusion. It's not a tenable one.
Nor is the notion that with Russell in the ranks all would be well. This poor run in 2022 started in Wales and Russell was as much a part of that malaise as anybody else.
He played poorly (for much of the Six Nations), got himself yellow-carded at a critical stage and Wales dropped a goal to win it while he was off the field. His, and others, ill-discipline after the Italy game was also uncalled for.
Self-inflicted wounds hurt Scots again
On the field and off, Scotland have a capacity to hurt themselves. Saturday was the same.
Two points is a precarious lead, especially when 10 minutes earlier it had been nine points. The poor discipline of the Six Nations - 61 penalties conceded, before a marked improvement on the summer tour - returned with a vengeance.
With the penalty count mounting, their lead had all the vulnerability, and life expectancy, of a rabbit in the headlights.
Scotland lost a lineout close to the Australia 22, then allowed a ball to bounce into touch near their own 22 when it should have been caught and hoofed clear. They then came up offside, and gave away a penalty that was kicked by Bernard Foley to give the Wallabies the lead.
Scotland lost a game they could have won when Kinghorn failed with a penalty of his own at the end.
What they did in Argentina in the third Test in the summer, they did again here. They didn't throw victory away with the same ludicrous abandon, but the bottom line was just the same. This was Scotland's ninth Test of the year and their sixth defeat.
Townsend said Hamish Watson wasn't offside for the penalty that Foley kicked - and he had a point - but Dave Rennie also had a point when he voiced a minor gripe about some of the penalties given against his own team - 15 in all to Scotland's 14.
The annoying thing for Scotland is that they have beaten much better Australia sides than the one they faced on Saturday. Townsend looks like a coach who needs a bit of joy in his professional life.
He didn't make a big deal of it, but the coach reckoned that Australia could, or should, have been reduced to 14 for the last four minutes when Hunter Paisami deliberately knocked on. Most would agree with him. The flipside of that is that his own man, Glen Young, might have had a red card for a high shot on Tate McDermott just short of the hour.
He got yellow and Australia scored seven points while he was away. Games with the Wallabies are so often decided by a single score. The chat later on was about Kinghorn missing his shot at goal, but the 10-minutes in the bin was when the alarm bells started sounding and they only grew louder with those errors leading up what turned out to be Foley's match-winning kick.
No gargle, less shouting at subdued Murrayfield?
It was a weird day. For a lot of it, Murrayfield reverberated to the sound of chatter, the Test match almost happening as an incidental in the background.
There are theories about why it was so quiet for so long. The train strikes, for instance. People brought the car and didn't drink. No gargle, less shouting. Not a scientifically proven notion, but maybe. Or perhaps it was just that the game was mediocre for the most part or that fans are now so used to watching Test rugby that it takes a lot to get them excited these days.
Scotland have three more games at Murrayfield this autumn, then another five in the spring. Then there will be at least three World Cup warm-up matches in late summer and another four at the tournament proper, maybe more if they pull of a shock in the group.
Sixteen Tests minimum in 11 months and nine days. Great fun or an indication that in playing more games to raise more money to feed the many mouths it has to feed, international rugby is, in fact, in danger of eating itself?
In the churnathon, Vern Cotter's Fiji are next. The last time we saw him at a Murrayfield Test match the Stern One was in tears at the scale of the ovation he received on his last day as Scotland coach.
There are rugby folk who will swear blind that had Cotter been allowed to carry on in the job the team would be in a better place now. Nostradamus tips his cap to them all.
Townsend has won massive victories, albeit they seem a bit distant now. Much like Russell, playing for fun in France while Scotland kick on into the autumn without him.