Scotland produce performance of extremes but survive spirited Wales fightback

All of Scotland’s brilliance and a lot of those familiar failings. Scotland, it cannot be denied, underscored once again their status as second only to France in attack. But even with a 27-point cushion midway through the second half, they contrived to make life uncomfortable for themselves against a clearly inferior side.

Wales managed to rouse themselves from a hopeless position to claim two bonus points when Max Llewellyn crashed over to score their fourth try at the death. Jarrod Evans’s conversion, his third, pulled Wales back to within six for the second point. Small consolation for Wales, still rooted to the foot of the table. They had been completely outplayed for an hour, but will welcome England to Cardiff next Saturday with a modicum of encouragement.

But what extremes were displayed by their hosts. To say Scotland’s interest in the championship is over is not quite right. All eyes of the ­purists will be on Paris for the grand finale between the ­attacking kings of the Six Nations.

For the record, Scotland will need all five points to move ahead of France and beat them by the small matter of 52 points. Even then, they would need Italy (and Wales) to finish just as strongly if Ireland and England are not to trump them. They played here like a team who just had to run around a lot and score right, left and centre, in order to work through their frustrations at another championship gone by.

They had their bonus point well before half-time. There was a hint of the Keystone Cops about that one – from Wales’s perspective at least – in marked contrast to the effortless fluency with which the home side scored the three preceding tries.

Tom Jordan claimed that bonus point with his second try. Scotland had overplayed off an attacking ­lineout, affording Wales the chance to play out of defence. Ben Thomas chipped towards the touchline, Blair Murray acrobatically turned the ball inside, rather than let it go out, for no obvious reason other than to show, perhaps, that he could, only for Thomas to fumble the return ball. Jordan was on hand to hack it through and score at his leisure.

How different his first try – or indeed those either side of it, scored by Blair Kinghorn and Darcy Graham respectively. Jordan was on hand to accept an inside ball from his centre partner, Huw Jones, after he had been put away down the left.

Scotland's flanker Jamie Ritchie attempts to charge down a kick from Wales's Rhodri Williams. Photograph: Andy Buchanan/AFP/Getty Images

Whether they were making rugby look very easy or being waved through by a team out of their depth remained a moot point, but the same question hung over Scotland’s first and third tries too.

Kinghorn was too fast for any of Wales’s back three to stop, after he appeared at the end of the first of the many multiphase attacks the hosts unleashed on their visitors. As for Graham’s try, the end of another sustained attack, sent over by Finn Russell after a gorgeous dummy and delay, it was effortlessness elevated to an art form.

Russell suffered one of his more painful afternoons last time out, missing all three conversions against England. It goes without saying that he landed the conversions of all four in the first half.

Between tries two and three, Wales did strike with a well-constructed score of their own. Gareth Anscombe had opened the scoring with a penalty after two minutes for a soft offence at the first lineout. But his chip was instrumental for Wales’s try early in the second quarter, the race to which Murray won with ease.

Still, a 28-8 lead at the break is smaller than the one they held over Wales in this fixture last year in Cardiff, when Wales recovered from a 27-point deficit to fall short by one. As if to dare fate, Scotland quickly established that very same buffer within 10 minutes of the break, when some close-quarter carries paved the way for more sublime handling and running lines, at the end of which Kinghorn cantered over for his second.

Murrayfield lost its mojo at that point, the game seemingly won, the championship still none the closer. The air rather went out of Scotland too. The referee started to find fault in their every move. From one penalty to touch, Wales set up a sequence. Joe Roberts, on early for Tommy Rogers, was sprung down the left, and Jarrod Evans, on for Anscombe, expertly sent Ben Thomas scything through an empty midfield on the hour.

Mission Impossible 2 became a little less so with Wales’s third a few minutes later, young Teddy Williams, the leggy lock, charging and reaching for the line.

Now Murrayfield woke up. Scotland responded, George Horne breaking through the fringes to set up siege on the tryline. Wales held out that time and returned for those bonus points of their own.