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By Tom English
BBC Scotland
It appeared that 100 days had passed since they met up as a team to prepare for the World Cup after Scotland finished their media conference at Takanawa at Tokyo on Saturday.
One hundred days of training meetings and sessions, of previews and testimonials, of games and traveling and preparation to the opener from Ireland in Yokohama.
Sunday was 101, that was kind of proper given its connotations since George Orwell (an anagram of his name being Ell Gregor Woe) composed about individuals being tormented in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. You have Room 101 and you have Rugby 101; even Townsend’s bothering present and Orwell’s dystopian near future.
It’s hard to know how many times the management and players of Scotland talked during these first 100 times, but it was from the dozens. Fighting talk. They threw back their shoulders and gave it large about how great they may be.
Before the Ireland game, they spoke about how tough they had been working on defence, just how far they were planning to target Johnny Sexton, how a herd of rampaging wildebeest would not create them take a backward step against the Irish, the way they had been saving their own best things for your World Cup.
Obviously the Scots must back themselves in public. They needed to deliver a performance and they never came close, although they could don the black cap and pass a World Cup passing sentence on themselves. Should they came on in the first place their lights went out early.
Scotland are sold. They win a couple games and everyone becomes giddy, including us at the press, when reporting on this group, who are starved of joy that each victory at Murrayfield is thought of as a turning point.
It simply becomes a turning point when they flip, maybe not by providing just one win in five matches in the recent Six Nations before going into 21, when they approach the turn. From their previous six championship games, they have a success, against Italy at home.
After a few minutes in Yokohamathey surrendered the very first try. By the moment the barnstorming Iain Henderson conducted with Stuart McInally and Grant Gilchrist, you knew the dent came.
As the score always comes in those moments, you would have bet the house on it. Scotland’s defence was dumb to get round the corner at James Ryan and the ruck went over. Easy.
After 14 minutes, then they conceded a driven line-out tries off. Once more began to move forward would have gone. Some teams hold the business and belligerence to maintain teams outside in these essential times. Scotland fold when their defence is stressed. Ireland head coach Joe Schmidt understands that better than anyone. He performed it.
A third one arrived down the end of this field away a Scotland mistake after 26 minutes. That one by Tadhg Furlong, A scrum, a few hard-running from CJ Stander, much more slackness out of Scotland and yet another soft touch try. Not half an hour and the game was completed. One hundred days of preparation – because of this?
There’s a view on the market – shared who Scotland have confronted in recent times – that when it concerns the collective talents of the team a few of them have to say for themselves. Around needing to play with the fastest brand of rugby on the planet, listen incredulously into the conversation from some Scotland players and trainers – a mantra repeated again after the beating of Sunday by one of their number.
In rugby terms there’s no relation although Ireland and scotland are Celtic cousins. This season has been hard for these gamers, their kind diminished, their confidence severely ruined, louder and their critics louder. They have not been protected by any amount of silverware from their 2018 out of flak.
They guys, however. Relentless. Tough mentally and physically. Power of personality – and high quality of player and coach – seems to be acquiring them through their slump. They are a force that would have drunk in Scotland’s conversation and gently fed off it.
Only the hopelessly optimistic (or delusional) Scotland enthusiast would have predicted a victory on Sunday. There was evidence. Because Schmidt entered the spectacle ireland had won five of their six meetings. They scored 21 attempts in those games and won by an average of 14 points.
Yes, their 2019 form was poor up until their most recent win over Wales in Dublin, however win indicated they got back to the things they were. It was a portent of doom because of the Scots.
Ireland were hot favorites and there could have been shame in Scotland dropping to them. They talked the talk and fell into a heap. The galling thing isn’t that Scotland dropped, it’s that Scotland never turned out.
Townsend’s admission in the aftermath they lacked electricity and aggression was a shocker although we had heard, and seenthe identical thing before. And recently. And over once.
When passive at a 32-3 defeat against France at Nice, the Scotland defence coach, Matt Taylor, talked about the lack of urgency of the team.
“On reflection, perhaps we should have poked and prodded and fired the boys up more than we did,” he explained.
They want poking and prodding to get themselves up?
“We simply left it to the players to get themselves in the right frame of mind,” he added. “With it being a warm-up match in a great area like Nice, we just assumed that level of intensity was going to be there also and it wasn’t.”
It was not there in Yokohama for a World Cup game, it was not there in Nice, it was not there in the opening half an hour in Twickenham when England scored four attempts, it was not there against Wales and Ireland at Edinburgh or against France in Paris.
In their previous 11 games, Scotland have conceded 12 tries in the opening 14 minutes. At the identical interval, Ireland have surrendered two. The absence of power and aggression is a weakness that Townsend hasn’t fixed.
On Monday they go to get Kobe, where they and Samoa play with per week later. Shorn their gamers poached by other nations and of fund, the Pacific Islanders continue to be subjected to the most shameful treatment by the world game. They’ve lost to the USA, Fiji and Australia in their past three matches, but there were signs against the Wallabies that they’re beginning to put something together again. Four years ago, the wits frightened from Scotland at Newcastle.
Nothing which Samoa, or even Japan, will probably have observed on Sunday will give some concern to them. The pair of them remain underdogs but they’ll smack a giant target on the backs of these Scotland gamers and go afterwards with intent. A venomous intent.
The states have already met on the watch of Townsend. It was in the autumn 2017, a 44-38 win in Murrayfield. Scotland scored six tries daily. Samoa believed five. Scotland should win this match, but they’ll be battered in the process. This week will be grim. They are in a hole. A one.

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