The Scotsman Bulletin September 25 2023 #Sport #SPFL #RWC2023

The Scotsman

Transcript

00:00 Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Bulletin for Monday. I'm Alan Young, Deputy

00:12 Editor of the Scotsman. I'm joined today by our Sport Editor, Mark Atkinson, to take a

00:16 look back at a big weekend. Hi Mark. Good morning. Let's have a look at the front page

00:22 first off. And we leave today with the comments of Green Minister Patrick Harvie, who says

00:29 he will not condemn environmental activists who break the law. The main picture on the

00:34 front page there. No surprise from Scotland's game yesterday after a two week break. Scotland

00:41 are back in the World Cup. Really encouraging win there. We will speak to Mark about that

00:49 in a bit. And at the top of the page, don't miss our Scottish Life pullout today, which

00:55 is going heavy on Bake Off. It's Bake Off time once again. So Mark, hold on one second.

01:02 I'll put my prop on. There we go. I don't know if you can see the... there you go. I

01:12 am now back interested in the Rugby World Cup. I think we all are, Alan. Some people

01:21 joked last week that Scotland weren't at the World Cup having a two week break following

01:26 a pretty dispiriting defeat by South Africa in the opening game. But as you say, we're

01:31 back. Scotland had to win yesterday against Tonga. They had to win well. They had to score

01:36 at least four tries and get the bonus point victory. They did that and more. They won

01:40 45-17 in Nice against the Tongans. They scored seven tries, five points on the board. And

01:48 I suppose you could say part one of what we require to qualify for the knockout stages

01:54 has been completed.

01:55 Indeed. And look, it's quite complicated, really. But briefly, if you can, how can Scotland

02:06 qualify? What do we need to happen?

02:09 OK. Yeah. I'll try and keep this as simple as possible because it is complicated. But

02:13 let's make the assumption that South Africa will beat Tonga because everyone else has

02:17 beaten Tonga so far. If they do that, they'll do a bonus point and they will end up with

02:23 a total of 14 points. So Scotland are currently on five and Ireland are currently on 14. So

02:30 Scotland played Romania next. They should beat Romania on a bonus point. That would

02:34 put them up to 10 points. Therefore, going into the final match in Paris, Stade de France,

02:39 Saturday at eight o'clock against Ireland in two weeks time, they would have to win

02:45 against the Irish first and foremost. Only a win would do. And then they would have to

02:49 make sure they win by eight points or more, which would allow them to deny Ireland a bonus

02:57 point for losing or win by scoring four or more tries and also denying Ireland the same

03:05 as well. So the bonus points are going to become important here. So Scotland not only

03:09 do they have to win their last two matches against Romania and Ireland, they have to

03:12 win them almost certainly with bonus points. It's not easy. Anyone that watched Ireland

03:18 vs Africa on Saturday night, the game of the tournament so far, a tremendous game of rugby

03:23 and in my opinion, it could well be the dress rehearsal for the final, which unfortunately

03:28 would mean that Scotland would not go out of their group. We always knew it was going

03:31 to be tough. I think we wanted South Africa to beat Ireland. That didn't happen. So yeah,

03:36 it's, look, we're up against it. Of course we are. We always were in this group. But

03:40 the most important thing is that Scotland have got a win on the board, a bit of positive

03:45 energy and momentum. They play Romania next on Saturday and that really should be a straightforward

03:51 victory. You should be thinking 50, 60 points easily.

03:55 Absolutely. We're still in it. That is the most important thing. Thinking though about

04:04 football because it was another big weekend domestically as well. There's a couple of

04:09 results caught your eye.

04:11 Yeah, yeah. The football, it's starting to get interesting. I was at Ibrox yesterday

04:16 for Rangers Motherwell. Rangers won 1-0 but when the full-time whistle went, half the

04:21 crowd booed. It was a really poor performance from Rangers. They are struggling, which sounds

04:28 bizarre. They've won their last three games, kept a clean sheet in all three, but the performance

04:32 levels are not where they need to be and it just feels that Michael Beale and his players

04:38 are walking on eggshells. They feel like they're one defeat away from a real crisis at the

04:43 club. They've had a lot of injuries at Rangers and they've got games every three, four days.

04:47 They're fighting on three fronts at the moment. Celtic won 24 hours earlier quite comfortably.

04:51 They were down to 10 men, they beat Livingston 3-0. Brendan Rodgers' first ever win in the

04:57 Macaroni Arena. That puts the pressure on Rangers even more. A difficult moment for

05:04 Rangers despite the victory.

05:06 The other eye-catching result, or two eye-catching results I would say, over the weekend. Aberdeen

05:11 got back to winning ways. They beat Ross County 4-0. Very, very important win for Bayer Obsern

05:16 given that they were sitting joint bottom of the league and winless. They were very

05:19 good by all accounts yesterday and four goals will do their conference. The world will be

05:24 against Ross County. But Hearts lost to Samirin on Saturday 1-0 and the pressure is starting

05:31 to crank up on Stephen Naismith. Social media over the weekend awash with Hearts fans who

05:36 are not happy with the situation at Tyne Castle. They play Kilmarnock tomorrow night in Ayrshire

05:42 in the bi-week. If they were to lose that game, it could be some real heat on the club.

05:49 So yeah, we're getting into that stage, Alan. If you start the season badly, fans are going

05:55 to get very discontented. So yeah, never a dull moment in Scottish football or Scottish

05:59 rugby or Scottish sport in general.

06:01 Indeed, another big week coming up. Thanks very much for talking us through all that,

06:05 Mark. Please keep an eye on scotland.com throughout the day for all the very latest updates from

06:10 news and sport. If you can, do subscribe, then you will not miss a thing. And if you're

06:15 out and about today, please do pick up a copy of the paper. But for me and for Mark, it's

06:21 bye for now.

06:23 [Music]

Category

Transcript

Recommended