Never mind England’s 10 years of pain. The agony continues for Scotland and an Australia side searching for a European grand slam were never going to be as accommodating as the Springbok team who so limply gave Eddie Jones’s side their first win over them for a decade.
Cruel does not quite cover it. For what would have been one of Scotland’s greatest days was ruined again by Bernard Foley’s late conversion of a Tevita Kuridrani try. This was Scotland’s best display since the same fly-half kicked a controversial last-minute penalty to deny Vern Cotter’s side a place in the World Cup semi-finals last autumn.
The New Zealander is not a man who believes in glorious failure. Even he, though, could see shafts of light in the Edinburgh gloaming. This season has been dubbed a leaving tour for the coach, who makes way for Gregor Townsend next summer, and he is convinced he has the makings of a side who can make an impact in the Six Nations. “I am very proud of the way we played,” Cotter said. “John Barclay led by example. He was outstanding. Finn Russell made some key breaks, the new boys in the front row are real athletes and all the team fought for each other. It was a more complete performance but in the end the game was lost by a tiny margin.”
Scotland may have a shallower pool of players than their rivals in Britain and Ireland but they do have a healthy batch of three-quarters. For one reason or another Duncan Taylor, Matt Scott and Mark Bennett were unavailable and Cotter was forced to give a first Test start to a player who sounds as if he should have been on Wales’ radar.
The only game Huw Jones had played on Scottish soil before running out at Murrayfield on Saturday had been an under-11 game for his school side from Canterbury. The 22-year-old Jones made an appearance off the bench in one of Scotland’s lacklustre wins in Japan last summer but if he was nervous at the prospect of facing a side who had pulverised Wales a week earlier it did not show.
Jones carved up the Australia defence after 10 minutes with a curving 40-yard run after the fly-half Russell had chipped the ball perfectly from a Scotland lineout in their own half. Fifteen minutes later he took a pass from the tighthead prop Zander Fagerson to dart over for a second. Jones has another season on his contract with the Stormers in South Africa and has already piqued the interest of Premiership clubs south of the border. Born in Edinburgh but raised in England and refined in South Africa, he was asked after his stunning Murrayfield debut what the names of his parents were. At the end of this week of all weeks, he reluctantly admitted they were “Bill and Hilary” and they were watching from the stand.
“It was nice to get over the try line twice. Of course I’m happy with that,” he said. “It was unbelievable but at the end of the day we lost. Late on they were attacking in our 22, we got a little tight off the maul, two tackles were slipped and he [Kuridrani] got through. I was gutted but we still had time to go back into their half and win it.”
Scotland did have the chance to win the game in the four minutes that remained but despite going through 19 phases the ball went dead, much to Australia’s relief.
The Wallabies, who meet France on Saturday night, had been forced to play the last 10 minutes with 14 men after their substitute Will Skelton thumped Jonny Gray and was sent to the sin-bin by the referee John Lacey. The New Zealand-born lock is a giant but his good sense is about as limited as his rugby skill and Australia’s coach Michael Cheika was furious with this latest misdemeanour.
Gray’s second-half try looked to have won it for Scotland but Greig Laidlaw’s conversion struck an upright. In the end that was the difference between the teams. Scotland’s young pack, with the 20-year-old Fagerson and South Africa-born loose-head Allan Dell making exceptional first starts, now faces two searching physical examinations, the visit of Argentina to Murrayfield on Saturday and of Georgia to Kilmarnock a week later.
Life gets no easier. Cotter will be without his No8 Ryan Wilson, who lasted only five minutes and his replacement John Hardie, who was carried off on a stretcher after an outstanding 55 minutes.
