Italy vs Scotland match report: Scots put two years of misery behind them

(Getty)

Cometh the hour, cometh the man. Scotland ended a wretched run of nine successive Six Nations defeats – their worst run in the Championship since the early 1950s – with a victory founded on the nerveless goalkicking of their captain Greig Laidlaw. The Gloucester scrum-half has had his detractors at times, but his four penalties in a 20-minute spell here in the second half were the dagger blows that took the game away from an Italian team surely now destined for the wooden spoon.

Having lost Sean Maitland on the eve of the Scots’ last match in Wales, Vern Cotter’s plans suffered another late injury blow as David Denton was ruled out with a groin strain. Ryan Wilson was handed the Bath No 8’s starting slot but the change failed to disrupt the visitors.

Not since their 21-20 victory in the Eternal City just over two years ago had the Scots tasted a Championship success, but after falling behind to an early Kelly Haimona penalty they seized control with well-taken tries by John Barclay and John Hardie in the opening 15 minutes – the first time both their starting flankers had scored in the same game against Tier One opponents since 1982.

The first came after Tim Visser slipped the ball wide to full-back Stuart Hogg, whose dancing feet took him to within five yards of the Azzurri line before Haimona hauled him down. The Glasgow man remained switched on, popping the ball off to Barclay as the flanker arrived like a steam train to dot down the opening score after 10 minutes, Laidlaw converting.

The second touchdown seven minutes later was equally impressive. Russell spotted a mismatch and broke past three tackles to take Scotland to within scoring range again. From the ruck, they moved the ball quickly out to Wilson and then to Hardie to dive over. Again Laidlaw added the extras from wide out.

Scotland were finally showing the kind of lethal touch they have claimed they were ready to unleash since their encouraging World Cup as they swarmed over the hosts.

Laidlaw kicked another penalty but Italy weren’t ready to go down without a fight and they cut the deficit 30 minutes in when centre Gonzalo Garcia and full-back David Odiete powered through some weak Scottish defence before releasing Leicester hooker Leonardo Ghiraldini to score, with Haimona converting.

With only one score separating the sides at half-time, Italy smelled blood but instead Laidlaw took the game away from them by ruthlessly punishing home indiscipline at the breakdown. He kicked the first of his four second-half penalties five minutes after the restart but the Italians came again as they applied phase after phase of pressure near the Scottish line. In the end, though, they had to settle for another Haimona penalty as the Scots’ scramble defence held out.

With Laidlaw’s boot keeping the Scottish scoreboard tally ticking, Italian skipper Sergio Parisse did his best to inject some impetus into his team’s display with a daring 20-yard break but was left frustrated as his colleagues failed to follow up.

They were boosted, however, when Russell was sin-binned after 62 minutes for illegally handling in a ruck and it took Italy just 30 seconds to make their numerical advantage count as Marco Fuser squeezed the ball over the line from another forwards drive. WP Nel did his best to hold the flanker up but referee Jaco Peyper awarded the score after consulting upstairs and Haimona converted again.

Yet again Laidlaw took the wind out of Italian sails with another penalty, ignoring the home supporters’ boos to fire over.

Tempers flared more than once in the final 10 minutes as Italy scrapped for a way back into the contest. Russell returned but Scotland were soon a man down again as Nel was shown yellow for a deliberate knock-on.

Two years of pain was finally brought to an end as Scotland sealed the win two minutes from time. Duncan Taylor fed Hogg, whose delicious offload to Seymour allowed his Glasgow colleague to run in from out wide under the posts. Laidlaw put the finishing touch on a long-awaited success with the conversion.

“It was great to get that victory,” Scotland hooker Ross Ford said. “The boys dug in deep and hopefully we’ll kick on from here.”

Italy: D Odiete (Marchoil Mogliano); L Sarto (Zebre), M Campagnaro (Exeter), G Garcia (Zebre; A Pratichetti, Treviso, 75), M Bellini (Petrarca Padova); K Haimona (Zebre; E Padovani, Zebre, 72), E Gori (Treviso; G Palazzani, Zebre, 79); A Lovotti (Zebre; M Zanusso, Treviso, 57), L Ghiraldini (Leicester; D Giazzon, Treviso, 57), L Cittadini (Wasps; M Castrogiovanni, Racing, 57), M Fuser (Treviso), J Furno (Newcastle; V Bernabo, Zebre, 36), F Minto (Treviso; D van Schalkwyk, Zebre, 67), A Zanni (Treviso), S Parisse (capt, Stade Français).

Scotland: S Hogg (Glasgow); T Seymour (Glasgow), M Bennett (Glasgow; P Horne, Glasgow, 62), D Taylor (Saracens), T Visser (Harlequins; S Lamont, Glasgow, 72); F Russell (Glasgow; sin-bin, 61-71), G Laidlaw (capt, Gloucester); A Dickinson (Edinburgh), R Ford (Edinburgh; S McInally, Edinburgh, 63), WP Nel (Edinburgh; sin-bin, 75), R Gray (Castres; T Swinson, Glasgow, 79), J Gray (Glasgow), J Barclay (Scarlets), J Hardie (Edinburgh), R Wilson (Glasgow; J Strauss, Glasgow, 67).

Referee: J Peyper (South Africa).