USA 1-2 after Scotland A loss

On a night that was almost unbearably cold, wearing three or four layers to stay warm; apparently it was great for a mid-November Scottish evening. The Scotsman sitting next to me was casually wearing his light overcoat and not showing an ounce of uncomfortableness. In the end, it turned out the conditions weren't too bad for the players.

It was a well fought in the first half, with nearly the same line-up as that of the Saracens 2 weeks earlier. Once again it was a lot of very good scramble defense, with very little possession of the ball. This obviously takes a toll. It was 6-0 to Scotland at about the 20 minute mark, but that quickly changed when our prop was sin-binned. They eventually scored in the corner and made it 11-0, which was the half time score.

At that point there was a lot of promise, some good movement of the ball when we did have it. In the second half it was much the same. They were pressing hard on our goal line, and even after we received our second yellow, we managed to keep them from scoring. We played continuous phases that finally got us into their territory and put pressure on them. An unfortunate turnover, led them into a promising position to attack, but we covered well. However, our tackler was whistled for yet another yellow card (so we were down to just 13 on the field). In the next 5 minutes they put up 14 more points.

That was all we could handle, and without much offense it didn't look promising. The score ended 25-0, but there were some good things to take out of the match, as there usually are. In the end there were only 6 points scored while it was 15v15. We either have to learn how to play better with a yellow card, or better yet, stop getting them.

(A beautiful Scotland sunset while visiting the castle together)

This weekend we play our final match on tour against Georgia. It'll be a very highly contested match and not easy by any means. Georgia beat Canada last weekend, so they're running high on that underdog victory.