{"id":275383,"date":"2025-11-10T12:29:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T12:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/275383\/"},"modified":"2025-11-10T12:29:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T12:29:09","slug":"no-team-in-the-world-that-can-defend-us-scotland-take-positives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/275383\/","title":{"rendered":"‘No team in the world that can defend us’: Scotland take positives"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Grant Gilchrist admitted Scotland<\/a> need to find a way to replicate their second-half display against New Zealand<\/a> for a full 80 minutes in order to get to a level where they can beat one of the world\u2019s top three sides.<\/p>\n

While the Scots have proven themselves capable of defeating the likes of France, England, Australia, Wales, Argentina<\/a> and Italy<\/a> on a regular basis under Gregor Townsend<\/a>, they have been unable to knock off any of the All Blacks<\/a>, South Africa<\/a> or Ireland<\/a> during the current head coach\u2019s eight-and-a-half-year reign.<\/p>\n

Saturday was arguably the closest they have been to beating one of the world\u2019s heavyweight trio, after they stormed back from 17-0 down to level the match at 17-17 before losing 25-17 after some late heroics from Damian McDonald.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t get the opportunity to win these games, you don\u2019t get to 17-all on 70 minutes (against the All Blacks) unless you\u2019re a good team,\u201d said second-rower Gilchrist.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut that\u2019s the next step for us. We\u2019ve seen so much growth, the fact that we can go 17-0 down, not panic, stick to the gameplan, and go and grab the game like we did in the second half, that\u2019s the bit that shows we\u2019re a really good team.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Scotland <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Argentina <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it gets to those moments, it\u2019s small things. It\u2019s one lost lineout and one unbelievable piece of play from Damian McKenzie<\/a> that gives them the territory. But we\u2019ve got to look at the whole game.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe shouldn\u2019t have been 17-0 down. The tries they scored, the pick through the middle of the ruck was something we spoke about the whole week and the try before half-time was soft.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut even if we had conceded the 17 points, we should have had at least 17 of our own. We had two held up over the line. Those are the moments we reflect back on. We\u2019ve got to be better in those moments.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gilchrist believes his side showed their potential in a second half which they dominated for the most part.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we play rugby like that, there\u2019s no team in the world that can defend us,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it\u2019s about how we can make sure we take those opportunities in the first half so that\u2019s a win rather than a plucky defeat.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat second-half performance was exactly what we wanted to be but we need to replicate that for a full 80 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scotland must rouse themselves for Sunday\u2019s visit of a burgeoning Argentina side who have climbed above them in the World Rugby rankings.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re right up there, they\u2019ve beaten the All Blacks this year, so we know the challenge is \u2018can we perform like we did in that second half against the All Blacks and put away one of the top sides in the world?\u2019\u201d said Gilchrist.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll be straight on with what worked for us in Saturday\u2019s game and how we can replicate that next Sunday against Argentina and come away with a win against a top-quality side.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Grant Gilchrist admitted Scotland need to find a way to replicate their second-half display against New Zealand for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":275384,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-275383","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}