Rugby Union

[Snobot]

Hogg wasn’t that bad. On the first try he was badly exposed and half taken out by the French supporting runner when trying to tackle Thomas. No full back in world rugby would have made that tackle anyway.

I’m a big fan of Russell but that was awful again today. The second penalty missed touch in particular was unforgivable. Good management by Townsend to take him off today  to show he’s not untouchable. The montage of his f*ck ups from the Wales game at the start of the programme was pretty  shocking.

Part of me thinks he needs to be dropped to understand that he cannot expect to be picked regardless, but you wouldn’t want to face England with Laidlaw at 10. Maybe Horne at a push but it doesn’t fill you with confidence (although neither does Russell in current form).

[Gianfranco]

Great result. I only managed to catch it on the radio so I'll catch up later.

[Savage Henry]

Was working so missed it entirely. From the BBC text, it appears two of the front row played all 80 minutes. That must be pretty unusual in this day and age.

Great to see Jones score again -he’s taken over from Seymour who seems to have stopped scoring altogether.

[ChrisMFCfan1886]

23 minutes ago, John Lambies Doos said:

41 minutes ago, ChrisMFCfan1886 said:

Greig Laidlaw is a beautiful specimen of a man. Forwards, particularly Gilchrist were superb and didn't get bullied like they did in Paris, which was the most pleasing thing. Russell and hogg were both honking, everyone in the ground was screaming for him to be hooked after 10 minutes. He needs benched, maybe the Price/Laidlaw partnership which saw out the last 20 minutes is worth a go? 

Hogg was not honking at all; Russell most certainly was. Why does Hogg not take the pens from hand in 22. Even when Russell does make his touch it only goes about 7M

I noticed hogg a couple of times when France were counter attacking, but he was jogging back, and in the first half in particular in my opinion he seemed a bit disinterested 

[BuddieInDundee]

Laidlaw epitomised the difference today compared to the utter shambles of a performance against Wales. Mix of bad luck but a bit of a shocker for the second French try. However, unlike Price and the rest of team against Wales, didn't let it affect the rest of the performance. The game management stemming from him in the second half was absolutely superb.

Goes without saying that we have to be much better against England, especially in the first half. Thought we let our runners get isolated far too easily in midfield, and if we do that against England we won't be allowed to creep our way back in control like we did today.

Thought Berghan (sp?), Gilchrist and Wilson had absolutely superb games. What a difference having aggressive ball carriers makes to your overall attacking performance. Watching us half heartedly drift from side to side against Wales was one of the most seethe inducing things I've ever witnessed, but having ball carriers like that making the hard yards allowed guys like Huw Jones pick out some fucking sexy lines.

Only real negative talking point is now, surprisingly, Finn Russell. We all know for every five great games he'll have an absolute shocker, but that's two in a row now. Surely won't be dropped for the England game but you've got to worry what might happen to us if he goes into meltdown mode again.

[HoBNob]

56 minutes ago, Northsea80 said:

I’d suggest Russell needs to get his head down and start performing for Glasgow, however given that he’s leaving I’d rather Hastings got more game time as he’ll likely be first pick at 10 next season.

I'm a big fan of Hastings, think he'll end up more reliable than Russel.

[BuddieInDundee]

1 minute ago, Grant228 said:

I'm a big fan of Hastings, think he'll end up more reliable than Russel.

Decent options for the Scottish No10 jersey...what a time to be alive.

[Gianfranco]

I noticed hogg a couple of times when France were counter attacking, but he was jogging back, and in the first half in particular in my opinion he seemed a bit disinterested 

I’m not going to go into details but he is allegedly cheating on his wife. Could be problems at home.

[same_ol_g35]

I’m not going to go into details but he is allegedly cheating on his wife. Could be problems at home.

That why he's reportedly moving to Montpellier?

[John Lambies Doos]

I’m not going to go into details but he is allegedly cheating on his wife. Could be problems at home.

He got married far too young... Not that I condone the cheating, that's Chlamydia Kid territory

[Allan Jacobsen]

He was certainly close to having a couple of head's gone moments today. If it turns out that he's been cheating on his wife then he's a fucking c**t. If he hasn't then whoever started the rumour is a fucking c**t.

[ddfg]

Just back from Murrayfield and don't know if you could pick it up on the tv but when Russell missed touch for the second time it was a as close to outright jeering as you could get. Thought Hogg had a half decent game but was far too greedy in the second half when had two men outside him on what looked like a 2 on 1 and he chose to run inside into heavy traffic.

[Snobot]

51 minutes ago, ddfg said:

Just back from Murrayfield and don't know if you could pick it up on the tv but when Russell missed touch for the second time it was a as close to outright jeering as you could get. Thought Hogg had a half decent game but was far too greedy in the second half when had two men outside him on what looked like a 2 on 1 and he chose to run inside into heavy traffic.

Could hear it clearly on the TV. Come to think of it there was also that one in the first half that he kicked about 20 yards and Thomas almost batted it into play. He needs to sort his head out.

[GAD]

Just back. Thought Laidlaw made many people eat their words today, including me. That was a fucking captains performance. I also think the rugby guys on P&B are the best guys on this website, mon yous!

[John Lambies Doos]

I noticed hogg a couple of times when France were counter attacking, but he was jogging back, and in the first half in particular in my opinion he seemed a bit disinterested 

Interesting enough Planet Rugby gave him 8/10; same as Jones and Laidlaw. I didn't think he was as good as that tbh but I thought he played OK unlike Russell. Perhaps we are just spoilt by him playing well so when he just plays ok he looks shite?

[ChrisMFCfan1886]

20 minutes ago, John Lambies Doos said:

3 hours ago, ChrisMFCfan1886 said:

I noticed hogg a couple of times when France were counter attacking, but he was jogging back, and in the first half in particular in my opinion he seemed a bit disinterested 

Interesting enough Planet Rugby gave him 8/10; same as Jones and Laidlaw. I didn't think he was as good as that tbh but I thought he played OK unlike Russell. Perhaps we are just spoilt by him playing well so when he just plays ok he looks shite?

Also saw a table of this years six nations with the players who made the most metres so far, and Hogg was the top player. That surprised me to be honest. 

[John Lambies Doos]

Also saw a table of this years six nations with the players who made the most metres so far, and Hogg was the top player. That surprised me to be honest. 

Yeh mentioned that on PR too. I just think he has the x factor and when he doesn't do loads of magic things we automatically think he hasn't done some really good things.

[Doonhamer doon south]

Hogg I thought was solid enough without being spectacular. There was more carefulness about everyone play yesterday. 

 

Finn Russel was concerning. His passes to forwards were too flat, his all round kicking was bad but I thought his distribution to his centres was ok and at least gave them oppertunity to make attacking runs. 

 

Laidlaw was fantastic yesterday and that is some battle for the no 9 Jersey. I think he should start against England. 

 

The most pleasing thing about that performance yesterday was even though we went behind the heads didn't drop. The French at 50 to 60 minutes started to look nervous and the murrayfield crowd was magnificent in getting behind the team to help ensure victory. France must really be suffering with confidence because I thought that was a tough game against tough opposition. 

 

Well done Scotland pride restored. 

[honestly united]

Solid performance after another poor start. I think the difference today was the work rate in the forwards compared to last week. Against Wales I thought the likes of Gray and Barclay,  who usually have huge games for Scotland, were fairly average, and it wasn't helped that  du Preez did nothing, and Reid and Welsh, although solid in the scrums, dont get around the park as much as Fagerson / Dell / Marfo etc so the difference in defence was noticeable.

On Russell Im more dissapointed that Townsend hasn't got him playing. They are / were similar players and you would have thought Townsend would be able to get the best out of him. Maybe though that is the problem that Townsend is just telling him to play and not to keep things simple.

I think that we should keep Laidlaw at 9 for England game, as the difference when Price came on in terms of tempo was huge and could be just what is need if its a tight game.

Will be interesting to see who is back fit, I think Marfo and Dunbar are back, maybe Fagerson so could be big changes to come.

[flyingscot]

Introducing Price was a key too. He upped the pace and the French players were struggling to match it at that point in the game. Laidlaw was excellent, best performance from him in years.

Denton was good when he appeared too, we need a huge ball carrier and it should be Strauss IMO but Denton is a fine player. 

Russell is a confidence player. He's lost his mojo at the moment. We've seen this before at club level, it does come back. I wonder if he would benefit from 60mins v the Cheetahs on Friday night.