Fiji 29-14 Scotland: What Townsend said

BBC News

12-07-2025

Gregor Townsend admitted "Fiji deserved to win" as his Scotland side were left battered and bruised after a humbling loss in Suva.The Scots scored early in the first and second halves but couldn't respond to the physical onslaught that their hosts threw at them, with Fiji going on to win 29-14."Fiji deserved to win," he admitted. We're disappointed with our own performance and disappointed we didn't capitalise on a good start to the second half and getting back in the game."It was tough for us when we were down to 14 men on three occasions, but Fiji deserved to win."At times in the second half, players were looking very physically spent because of the big hits, the end to end action."A combination of their own errors and ill-discipline allowed Fiji into attacking areas throughout the game, while Scotland struggled to fire a shot in reply."Discipline [went wrong], clearly," Townsend continued. "There was 14 penalties and three yellow cards. I would imagine most of them are in our control. "That's unusual for us, to give away so many penalties and yellow cards, and that fatigues us when we're a man down. It also gives the opposition opportunities in our 22m and eventually those opportunities told for Fiji."Scotland were without several stars who are on tour with the British & Irish Lions but had recalled the likes of Rory Darge, Jamie Ritchie and Darcy Graham, who were rested last week against the Maori All Blacks."It would have had an effect when you're missing a few players but we believed in the team, we've got a lot of depth. We felt how we trained, how we've worked together the last two weeks, that we were ready to win this game."The start of the game and start of the second half showed what we can do. Some of the effort was excellent, but there was too many times where it was simple mistakes."That's nothing to do with the quality of our players. It was just giving away possession and penalties that made it easier for Fiji today."