Interim Scotland women’s head coach Dave Butcher says his team were the “creators of our own demise” on Saturday as they blew a half-time lead against Australia and lost a seventh Test match on the spin.
Things went pretty well for Scotland in the first half of the WXV Global Series clash at Hive Stadium in Edinburgh and the hosts were 10-5 up at the break thanks to a try by No.8 Evie Gallagher and five points from the boot of stand-off Helen Nelson.
Given their dominance in terms of possession in that 40 minutes, they should have been further ahead though and it came back to bite them.
Australia – aided by Scotland’s ill-discipline which saw them giving away far too many penalties and saw Gallagher yellow carded – were a different side after the break and scored 25 unanswered points to come out on top 30-10 and leave the hosts dejected.
After the game, Butcher said: “I’m sat here with a real sense of disappointment.
“I think we were the creators of our own demise, especially in that second half.
“If you are going to be that ill-disciplined and give away penalties, then a side like Australia is going to come back into things and that’s exactly what they did.
“We gave them momentum in the game by giving them penalties, we bounced them down the field and then they showed us what happens when you keep a team in their ‘22’ and just execute your chances.”
Scotland have to try and dust themselves down quickly because on October 7 they head out to Australia for two more WXV Tests against the Wallaroos on October 17 and 23.
“We’ll definitely look at ourselves before we head off and we are disappointed,” Butcher added.
“There were tears in the huddle at the end of the game just gone because of the level of disappointment, we genuinely went out and tried to win that game.
“Bit, like I said, with that level of ill-discipline, you can’t expect to win international matches.
“Now we have to get ready for two big matches away from home.”
Ill-discipline hit Scotland hard versus Australia – thanks to Gareth Falls
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