Three minutes later, Scotland conjured a third. Jordan won ball in the air to start it and Russell’s brilliance was there at the finish.
Deep in the Welsh 22 and with Anscombe in his road, the fly-half dummied, stepped and then found Graham, who roared in.
Another conversion and Scotland were already in dreamland.
Wales’ nightmare only grew darker. WillGriff John got binned for a cynical foul play. Then, they lost a fourth try. A totally self-inflicted nonsense score, too.
Thomas tried a kick-pass to Murray on the right wing, which was a poor decision. Murray acrobatically kept the ball in play, but when Thomas fumbled trying to gather, Jordan was all over him, hacked on and scored.
Wales were all over the place in defence and much better in what little attacking ball they had. A 20-point game in half an hour and they were fortunate it was still only 20 at the break.
It was 27 before too long. Russell put a penalty to touch and Scotland attacked off it, Russell popping Kinghorn in under the posts. So classy, so ruthless.
The fly-half has had a rough few weeks post-Twickenham – unfair in the extreme – but his response was terrific. He bossed it out there, banged over the conversion of Kinghorn’s try with ease, and exited just after the hour with the job done.
Scotland’s issues late on started just before Russell went off.
Wales mustered a second score of their own, getting in behind before Ben Thomas went over. Back to a 20–point game with the extras.
Then, with Russell off the pitch, Williams blasted over, and after that came the Faletau moment, the score disallowed for Murray hurdling a tackle in the preamble.
Wales hadn’t done with the jumpy Scots, though.
Max Llewellyn went over in the last throes for a fourth Welsh try and a losing bonus point and a four-try bonus that looked impossible for much of the day.
Leave a Reply