Rugby Union: Scotland seek patience
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Your support makes all the difference.JOHN RUTHERFORD, the Scotland assistant coach, is demanding patience from his side if they are to break down a dominant Australian team which has so far conceded just three points in two Tests.
The Scots go into tomorrow's second match with the Wallabies in Brisbane still recovering from the 45-3 mauling in Sydney at the weekend, which came hard on the heels of their record-breaking 76-0 annihilation of England just over two weeks ago.
Ominously for Scotland, the Australians, who are already looking ahead to their Tri-Nations battles with New Zealand and South Africa, say they need to improve even more.
The scene is set for Scotland's ninth successive defeat against the Aussies, although Rutherford is confident the scoreline will not be so one-sided. "If you analyse our play last Saturday the line-outs were shown to be poor. We will be a lot better on Saturday. We will also defend a lot better than last week," Rutherford, who has been capped 42 times, said.
"We may have to go through five or six phases of play to get through the Wallabies' defence, so we have to have patience. They base their defence on rugby league. In fact they have a specialised coach to help them with their defensive play.
"Australia are also very good at slowing up possession and in international rugby it is quick ball that backs depend on. The problem last week was that a lot of our breaks were from within our own half. Moreover Australia are very good at following the breaking player."
But the former Scotland and Selkirk stand-off is aware that if Scotland are to improve, they must make amends for their shortcomings. "In the first Test when we had the ball in hand we didn't use our options. Glenn Metcalfe in particular found it difficult to break through first tackles,'' he said.
The Scotland coach, Jim Telfer, has already selected the same team for the second Test, with one enforced change as Stirling County hooker Kevin McKenzie has replaced Gordon Bulloch, who dislocated a shoulder.
Telfer defended his decision to avoid a purge following their opening failure . He said: "It is the same team but we still think it's the best 15 to put on the park.
"We played very well for more than 30 minutes in the first Test and I think we can build on that. There may have been some expectation in the first Test that it was going to be just a little bit tougher than New South Wales [Scotland won 34-10], but it was a lot tougher on the same pitch."
Australia right wing Ben Tune and the coach, Rod Macqueen, are both predicting things could get worse for Scotland before they get better.
"Last weekend's match against Scotland gave us the pressure that we needed and it woke us up a bit," said Tune. "We realised that we still have a long way to go before we play the All Blacks [on 11 July].''
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