O'Little and O'Large

Well, that was somewhat illuminating on the current state of Scottish rugby. All of the talk recently was of "well yes they've lost all of the games, but there are signs of real improvement". That as actually probably true against Wales, France and England, but glosses over the fact they were abject against Italy. And that returned in this match. Handling errors and penalties galore. That's going to cost you against an average side - against the excellent Ireland side it was definitely going to spell disaster.

They knew what they had to do, with Wales having played first and racking up a cricket score against Italy. England then knew what they had to do, which (for me) sadly fell just short (I would cheer Scotland anyway, against anyone but England, but obviously today if they'd done well it would have helped England's cause).

All of the "What Ifs" that then got dissected in the television studio with the odious John Inverdale, unpleasant Clive Woodward, and arrogant Jeremy Guscott could have been looked at in so many different ways. Yes if Italy hadn't scored their late try then the pressure might have been more on Ireland; yes if Scotland hadn't dropped the ball in the last minute when over the try line England would have had a lower target; yes, if England hadn't conceded a penalty in the last minute, or the ref had penalised France for pulling down the maul, then what had gone before would have proved academic.

But by the same token Sexton missed two kicks that he'd normally drop over easily, which would have added a further 6 points onto an already difficult target, and the French then missed 3 penalties in the first half that would likely have seen English heads drop.

And in the end the Championship does not come down to individual moments in final games, no matter how much that plays into our desire for the dramatic. There were four games for each team before that to provide that platform, and each of those games will have had numerous individual moments such as those. If England, Wales or Ireland had scored one extra try in each of those four games etc etc etc.

One thing is for certain, Scotland probably deserved the wooden spoon (though I do think they're a better side than Italy), and the World Cup could be as painful as the last one.

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