disco wrote:Fair play to Edinburgh - earned that win through hard work and application. They're certainly not as poor a side as this season has made them out to be. But today's game has me questioning the mental strength and fortitude of Scottish rugby players.
On the Edinburgh side - where has that attitude been this season? The digging in and making the opposition work for every yard. The little shots and afters to throw the other side off their game. Why have, for example, SHC and Duncan Weir not been able to bring that focus and consistency to their distribution and game management during most of the other 28 games played by Edinburgh this season?
And on the Glasgow side a slightly different set of problems but again it comes down to resilience. Why has the level of play, the precision and accuracy required to make good decisions and execute skills under pressure - why has this dropped off towards the end of the campaign? It either started in the wake of achieving the long dreamt of goal of qualification for the Champions Cup quarters or possibly the Six Nations (and that game against England, the sort of result that doesn't happen to teams with real mental strength and a belief that they can win).
The issue for Townsend, Rennie and Cockerill is that if they want to see the 3 sides succeed and improve they're going to need players who can maintain the levels they're capable of week in, week out throughout a season. Currently there simply aren't enough Scottish players doing that.
You're preaching to the choir talking about mental fragility here disco, I think the win vs Dragons gave us a lot of confidence though.
For Glasgow's slump you just need to look at Toonie who said his aim was to get out the Champions Cup groups, when that was achieved the season completely went tits up and it doesn't seem a coincidence. The Glasgow team were poor today and considering Toonie was leaving, Lamont was retiring and many Glasgow players off too was very surprising. Do questions have to be asked of Gray's captaincy? He looks like he needs a rest.