Wales Vs Scotland   Saturday 3rd February 2024

The venue for the second game of the 2024 Guinness six nations championship was the principality stadium. With the roof shut the atmosphere was buzzing, with both sets of fans excited to begin a new World Cup cycle after relatively disappointing tournaments in France. Scotland begun the game strongly, building some early possession in Wales territory and after five minutes the men in blue were able to infiltrate into the Welsh 22. After a few phases Sam Costelow strayed offside allowing Finn Russel a fairly routine kick to put the Scots 3 points up. The visitors continued to apply pressure, looking for the first try of the game which came through Schoeman. After 11 phases of gruelling defence the Welsh forwards couldn't withstand and the prop dotted down under the posts. The kick was easily knocked over by the "Messi of rugby" and Scotland's lead stretched to 10 points.

Soon enough the Scots were back in the Welsh 22 and after Some petulance by Josh Adam's, who threw the ball into the stand, the referee awarded Russell's team a penalty. The same result saw the ball sail over the post to extend the lead once more. One way traffic continued and with half an hour on the clock Scotland struck again. After several phases, Cummings was able to break through the tackle of Gareth Thomas, getting over the gain line and giving the backs clean ball to work with. Ben White took out three defenders with his pass to Tuipulotu who found Russel out of the back of Huw Jones' sublime dummy line fixing Nick Tompkins. The Scottish fly half showed his pace to make a few yards before giving a simple pass for Van Der Merwe to Waltz in under the posts. 4 kicks from 4  in the first half for Russel saw the Half end with the score Wales 0-20 Scotland. 

It seemed almost certain that if Wales were to take anything from this game that they would have to score first in the second half. After less than two minutes into the half A Tomos Williams's box kick was followed up by a dysfunctional Welsh chase allowing Russel lots of time on the ball. The magician assessed his options, opting to run at Reffel who was able to make the tackle. However, this wasn't enough as the Scottish fly half was able to get his hands free and release the Scottish born left winger. Van der Merwe found himself haring towards Williams and just prior to reaching him elegantly stepped off his left foot and headed for the right corner flag. With more than enough pace to get there he scored his second try of the afternoon.

5 minutes later and Wales were presented with a rare opportunity in the Scottish 22. A line out saw the forwards maul towards the Scottish line, and with enough power to get over the line to score their first points of the game. Referee Ben O' Keiffe also deemed George Turner of Scotland guilty of attempting the bring down the maul illegally so showed him a yellow card and the Scots were down to 14 men. The crowd sensing this could be where the Welsh kick on. Lloyd dragged the kick wide so the score remained Wales 5-27 Scotland. With just under half an hour left to play the Welsh found themselves over the whitewash again as Rio Dyer crossed over for the home side. An overlap on the left hand side saw Williams find Tompkins who was stopped in his tracks but in a similar fashion to Russel in the first half was able able to offload back to Williams who sent a sublime pass over the backtracking Kyle Steyn for the young winger to dive over in the corner. This time the kick was successful and the crowd really begun to get behind the home side.

With an hour gone Tuipuloto was sin binned as Scotland gave away two many penalties away in the Red Zone area. The Welsh took a quick tap and after two explosive carries Wainwright scored to really bring Wales back in with a chance of securing their first home win in over a year. The kick was cool coverted by the young replacement fly half and Wales trailed by 8 points. With 2 minutes left on the sin bin, Wales looked to exploit the numerical advantage. A line out 5 yards out led to a maul and after being willed on by the crowd Alex Mann broke away and crossed for a try on his debut. The roof came off the principality and after the kick was converted there was only a point in it. What a thriller! Hyms and Arias rung round the ground as the Welsh fans looked to be the 16th player but The home side just didn't have enough. With the clock in the red Scotland were camped on the Welsh line, trying to score their fourth try in order to gain a bonus point. Some excellent defensive work by Dyer and Grady meant that the ball was held up over the line and therefore the try not awarded. The referee blew his whistle, ending the most spectacular game in a rather anticlimactic fashion. The fans didn't know how to react, the Welsh Second half performance so promising, but a loss nonetheless. FULL TIME SCORE: WALES 26-27 Scotland