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Gregor Townsend leapt to the defence of his Scotland players by insisting that he was to blame for the defeat to Ireland.
The Scots wasted several opportunities in attack as they crashed to a first home loss in the Six Nations since 2016.
Despite matching the team ranked No 2 in the world for long spells, Sam Johnson’s first-half try was the only time they managed to breach the Irish defence.
Gregor Townsend accepted the blame for the defeat against Ireland on Saturday
Jacob Stockdale was one of the Irish scorers as Joe Schmidt’s side came out on top
Trailing 12-10 at half-time, Townsend’s men were unable to capitalise on the pressure they had built prior to the interval. In the couple of minutes leading up to the break, there was a period of play that saw Scotland go through 25 phases deep inside Irish territory without scoring a single point.
Some sloppy handling errors in the second half then saw the game drift away from them as Joe Schmidt’s Ireland got their Championship back on track following the defeat to England.
Scotland skipper Greig Laidlaw later questioned some of the decisions from French referee Romain Poite.
They were also architects of their own downfall at times, with Tommy Seymour and Sean Maitland’s mix-up gifting Ireland scrum-half Conor Murray the opening try on the 10-minute mark.
But Townsend was adamant that he will shoulder the responsibility for his team’s inaccuracy in attack.
‘We probably should have scored one try more and I’m frustrated that we gifted them a try, but I am very happy with the way we played in the first half,’ said the Scotland head coach.
‘In the second half, the execution of our set-piece plays to get us into our game and to put more pressure on Ireland just didn’t happen. Both of the teams’ energy levels dropped in the second half because of the effort that they put into the first half.
‘With the tackles, carries and contact work at a very high level, you can’t keep that up for 80 minutes.
‘I’m so proud of the players, with the way they played and the effort they put in.
‘I thought we won those battles and our contact work against a very good defence, who will look to hold you up in the tackle, rip the ball or compete for the ball, was outstanding.
‘Just that final piece, the execution off our set-piece, which has been really good, that fell off the jigsaw today and that’s my fault.
‘I’m the attack coach and we weren’t able to get those two or three phases, either to get in behind the defence or set up our attack shape which was working well in the first half.
‘We got a lot of our attacking game into play, really good decisions and really good work rate off the ball meant that we were finding space in that first half.
Scotland put in plenty of effort and endevour but ended up falling short at Murrayfield
‘If we were able to replicate it in the second, I think we’d be here with a win.’ Laidlaw, meanwhile, was critical of referee Poite, citing one instance of particular injustice as far as the Scotland captain was concerned.
Poite did seem rather reluctant to punish Ireland at times, with Schmidt’s men using all their experience to close the game out.
‘There was one in particular. We launched off a line-out in the second half and Sean O’Brien reached the ball,’ explained Laidlaw. ‘I just felt that Romain was right there (looking at it), but he gave a knock-on against us when it clearly wasn’t a knock-on. It should have been play-on.
‘With the game going the way it was going, you can understand why we got frustrated.
‘We talk about Test matches turning on small points and, again, that just allowed the pressure valve to be released.
‘It was a big call in my eyes. From our point of view, we were disappointed with it.’ Stuart Hogg could be an injury worry for Scotland ahead of the visit to face France in Paris in a fortnight.
The talismanic full-back trudged off in the first half of Saturday’s match nursing a shoulder injury.
‘He’s sore, very sore,’ said Townsend. ‘He wanted to stay on but his shoulder was not right.
‘We’ll see what will happen over the next few days. It was disappointing, he chipped ahead and got sandwiched between two players.
‘These things happen quickly but there was a collision there that forced him to fly over and land on the point of his shoulder.
‘It was a big moment in the game. We conceded the try a minute after that and lost one of our best players.’
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