{"id":23933,"date":"2026-02-21T19:27:26","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T19:27:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=23933"},"modified":"2026-02-21T19:27:26","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T19:27:26","slug":"six-nations-2026-wales-23-26-scotland-gregor-townsends-side-battle-back-to-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=23933","title":{"rendered":"Six Nations 2026: Wales 23-26 Scotland &#8211; Gregor Townsend&#8217;s side battle back to win"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Tandy&#8217;s response to heavy opening defeats against England and France, in which Wales conceded 15 tries and 102 points, was to make four changes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Uncapped Leicester wing Gabriel Hamer-Webb, Scarlets fly-half Sam Costelow , Dragons second-row Ben Carter and Scarlets flanker Taine Plumtree coming in for Ellis Mee, Dan Edwards, Adam Beard and Olly Cracknell.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Wales made shocking starts in the opening two games but ensured that was not the case on this occasion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Plumtree and Hamer-Webb both picked up injuries in the opening two minutes. Hamer-Webb was forced off briefly with a bloody nose before Plumtree was permanently replaced by James Botham because of a shoulder problem.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Wales&#8217; discipline was again poor in the opening exchanges with two soft penalties, before Joe Hawkins was sent to the bunker for a high tackle on Scotland flanker Gregor Brown, who had moved from lock to the back row from the victory over England to replace the injured Jamie Ritchie.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Wing Josh Adams made a couple of important early interventions with a crucial tackle on Scotland centre Huw Jones followed by a vital interception.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Wales rallied with 14 men and after a searing break from scrum-half Tomos Williams, the home side produced an identical successful tap penalty move to last week when Carre dived over after the initial drive from Lake.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Hawkins&#8217; card remained yellow as it was deemed a passive tackle but it was still an 11th sin-binning in Tandy&#8217;s seven games in charge.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Scotland took advantage of the extra back with a sweeping move that was finished by Steyn.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Hawkins returned and his fellow Scarlets centre Eddie James, along with Lake, Carre and flanker Alex Mann, laid the foundations for Adams to cross for his 24th Wales try.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Costelow, who was starting his first game since July 2025 with Edwards having played the past seven games, converted from the touchline.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Botham was outstanding after his early introduction and a turnover laid the foundations for a Costelow penalty.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Scotland made a couple of early tactical substitutions as prop Pierre Schoeman and back rower Josh Bayliss came on for Nathan McBeth and Max Williamson, with Brown reverting to lock.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">After another storming Steyn break, a vital Mann turnover forced a penalty as Wales led 17-5 at half-time, the first time the home side had led under Tandy at the interval.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/rugby-union\/articles\/c0q3gxng5v4o?at_medium=RSS&#038;at_campaign=rss\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tandy&#8217;s response to heav&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23934,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[251],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23933"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}