Townsend selections backfire

Many of us commended Gregor Townsend for his bold selections for the Italy game, but the gambles did not pay off at the Stadio Olimpico.

The decision to leave Blair Kinghorn, Darcy Graham and Duhan van der Merwe out of the starting XV was understandable given the superior form of Tom Jordan, Jamie Dobie and Kyle Steyn.

However, the unfamiliar back three was exposed by an Italy side who clearly targeted that area.

Their positional sense was questionable for both Italy tries, they failed to win the aerial battle and offered little in attack.

It will be interesting to see what changes Townsend makes to his back three to face England.

Rome rain does not excuse performance

It would be easy to point to the biblical rain when looking for reasons for Scotland’s dismal performance, but there was more to it than that.

The first 20 minutes were played in fairly benign conditions, and that was the period when Italy ultimately won the game.

The Azzurri were setting the agenda in defence, putting in dominant hits and defending with an intensity that was sorely lacking in Scotland’s contact work.

In short, Italy looked like they wanted it more.

Set-piece struggles

It’s hard to build a foundation to win a Test match without a functioning set-piece, and Scotland were all over the place in this department.

Ewan Ashman’s three missed lineouts early on really set the tone. Those were opportunities for Scotland to really take a hold of the game, but squandering such promising attacking positions seemed to sap Scottish confidence and give Italy and their fans a lift.

Again, the line-out errors can not be chalked up entirely to the weather. There seemed to be confusion between thrower, lifters and jumpers as to what was happening. At the top level, that’s inexcusable.