And so Scotland’s year ends as it began, with a frustrating, avoidable defeat in Dublin. In between times there has been significant progress, in both results and the whole feel around the group, but here we saw some maddening relapses. Having got so much better at keeping themselves in the fight, Gregor Townsend’s men went back to that gory old trick of playing a major part in their own demise. A contested yellow card for Duncan Taylor brought a spectacularly sudden end to an excellent first half-hour from the visitors, who then began to fall well short of the defensive standards they have set in 2020. It’s been a while — last year’s World Cup, to be specific — since they shipped a cluster of

Source: The Times December 06, 2020 00:02 UTC