Scotland captain Greig Laidlaw scored a crucial try six minutes from time to give his side a massive 36-33 win over Samoa in Newcastle on Saturday and send them into the Rugby World Cup quarterfinals.
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The highest-scoring match of the competition began with three tries in the space of as many minutes as Tusi Pisi crossed for Samoa before an error gifted Tommy Seymour a reply within 60 seconds. The islanders believe they have not lived up to expectations and Scotland offer a last chance to show how good they can be.
Matt Scott started at centre for the Dark Blues and Sports Mole grabbed a word with the Edinburgh man after the final whistle. The first half was electric but then it really tightened up after the break.
“I’m very proud of the boys and the way they played”, Laidlaw said.
Scotland coach Vern Cotter said he had expected Samoa to play a free-running game and were taken by surprise by the more direct approach.
“It just highlights that little things happen”, he said. What’s going on here?’ “I suppose that’s what ended up happening”. “You have to shut them down. We need to perform that is it, at the top, to the best of our ability and if we do that hopefully we can get the job done”.
The Scotland captain had kept Scotland in the game until his try with five penalties and contributed a match total of 26 points – a personal Test best for him.
The second half turned into a slightly scrappier affair as Scotland looked to tighten things up, but it was still an enthralling watch.
“We know that we’ll have to improve and we’re looking for a much better performance in the contact area. We should have stuck to our original game plan, which was to try and move their big pack around and keep the ball when we were kicking”.
“We’ve got a lot of belief and the general team spirit is brilliant”.
The leadership of Greig Laidlaw was exemplary.
That made it 26-23 at half-time, with the combined first-half points tally of 49 representing a record for a World Cup match. Those deficiencies were glaringly obvious in a first half which saw Samoa score three tries and have another touchdown chalked off.
You’ve shown climpses of real quality throughout this tournament, but not quite strung it together over the whole 80 minutes.
They were up bright and early yesterday morning for a recovery session at the swimming pool at a school near the team hotel – after which Maitland revealed how the team was now thinking big.
“Definitely. The first couple of games (against Japan and USA) we pulled away in the second half in both”.
There was no comeback against South Africa when they were quickly down 3-20 and eventually lost 16-34. I didn’t even know I liked rugby.
“WP Nel has said we could go all the way so, yes, of course we can”.
Physically, how’s everyone doing? With cover in the wide channels nearly non-existent, Lee-Lo only had to slam past the exposed Stuart Hogg on the line to add try number three.
“I think he’s fine”.
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“It’s a great feeling to win 100 caps but I didn’t really care if I got on the field – it was all about Scotland winning and that was my main focus”.
