Young Scottish players have to learn about that mental hardness and develop real self-belief as rugby players if they are to be successful.
Glasgow’s dream of progressing to the latter stages of the Heineken Cup went up in smoke at Scotstoun on Friday as they lost to Cardiff.
Gregor Townsend wasn’t happy with the match officials after the game, particularly because the home team had such dominance in the scrum and in a crucial moment, they could not capitalise on that dominance.
When awarded penalties they chose to take the scrum not a bad idea given the Cardiff scrum only seemed to have a reverse gear, but the Warriors desperately needed to get a try.
Townsend’s gripe was that their try wasn’t a penalty try, which given the circumstances was understandable, but not definite.
The Warriors were also deprived of a try when Rob Harley was adjudged, rightly in my view, to have taken out a player in front of them American Football-style.
I was surprised Townsend queried that, as it was such an obvious foul.
But on such small margins are games won and lost and as neither Jackson nor Weir could kick their penalties, Glasgow’s dream became a nightmare.
The real issue however, in my view, was a lack of mental toughness by the Scottish side.
If the game had been in the RaboDirect Pro12 competition, Glasgow would probably have won, as their form has been good.
But with the pressure of needing to win to qualify for the Heineken Cup quarter final, I don’t think they were up to it.
That’s an issue that’s too common in the Scottish game at the moment just look at the autumn internationals.
Scotland could not capitalise and score a try before half-time against Australia and immediately after the half-time break they made a simple error that led to
an Australian score. Game over.
Ireland also suffered from that lack of self-belief and mental toughness in their outstanding match against the All Blacks and they lost it in the final minute.
No such timidness or lack of self-belief from the men in Black that day they always believed they could win the game.
Young Scottish players have to learn about that mental hardness and develop real self-belief as rugby players if they are to be successful.
The SRU’s new Academy structure should help that, but fundamentally, it comes from winning.
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