Scotland fight back to beat Wales after a decade

Second-half tries by US-born Tommy Seymour and his Dutch-born fellow wing Tim Visser helped Scotland end their 10-year losing streak against Wales with a 29-13 victory in a Six Nations international at Murrayfield yesterday.
Victory kept Scotland in the hunt for the Six Nations title and all but extinguished the Championship hopes of Wales, for whom this was a second straight loss after their 21-16 defeat by England.
Finn Russell scored the remainder of Scotland’s points after landing all seven of his shots at the posts.
The Scots trailed 13-9 at the interval, after a try by Wales wing Liam Williams and two penalties and a conversion by full-back Leigh Halfpenny, but galvanised themselves for a rousing second-half fightback in which they scored 20 unanswered points.
With Seymour and Visser crossing and fly-half Russell landing five penalties and two conversions, Scotland claimed their first win against Wales since 2007, ending a nine-match losing run.
It also meant they bounced back from a 22-16 loss to France in Paris where Scotland captain and first-choice goalkicker Greig Laidlaw suffered a tournament-ending ankle injury.
“The boys were awesome today,” man-of-the-match Russell told the BBC. “We knew if we were in the game at half-time then we would be good enough and we dug deep.
“I’ve got Greig’s boots on and I was happy to keep the scoreboard ticking over with my kicking today.”
Victory kept Scotland in the hunt for the Six Nations title with a second win in three matches, backing up their opening-day success against Ireland.
Wales coach Rob Howley accepted his side’s Championship hopes had evaporated.
“Our second-half performance wasn’t good enough,” Howley said. “We lacked possession and when we got it, Scotland were hugely effective in the contact area, slowing up our ball or getting turnovers.
“Losing today, our Championship is over but it’s about pride in the next two games,” the former Wales and British and Irish Lions scrum-half added.
Scotland made the better start with Russell kicking them into a 3-0 lead with a penalty in front of the posts after six minutes.
Wales were level after 11 minutes, Halfpenny landing his first penalty, but they struggled to make serious inroads until immediately after a prolonged break in play in the 23rd minute.
From a quick tap on the 22-metre line, Rhys Webb drew the Scottish defence and shipped the ball left for Halfpenny to send in Williams for a simple score.
Halfpenny converted and Wales might have gone further ahead had Webb not been guilty of a blatant tug on Seymour.
Wales were now clearly on top but they were pegged back when Russell nailed a second penalty in the 29th minute.
Halfpenny landed his second penalty four minutes later but the Toulon full-back then missed one from distance and an injury-time penalty by Russell reduced the deficit to 13-9 at the interval.
The Scots took that momentum into the second-half and were 16-13 up after 43 minutes, left wing Visser popping up on the right to take a smart pass from fullback Stuart Hogg and ship the ball on to Seymour, who just squeezed past the covering Scott Williams to score in the corner.
Wales had a chance to level the scores in the 52nd minute but fly-half Dan Biggar kicked for the left corner rather than go for the posts and the visitors proceeded to be punished for an obstruction at the ensuing line-out.
That failure to trouble the scoreboard was compounded when Russell nailed his fourth penalty after 54 minutes, stretching Scotland’s lead to 19-13.
The razor-sharp Webb would have regained the lead with a blindside break had Visser not just managed to drag the Ospreys scrum-half on to the white of the touchline.
It was Visser who then had the decisive touch at the other end, the outstanding Russell and Hogg combining to tee him up for a score on the left in the 66th minute.
Russell converted and added a fifth penalty.