Mercy. Tell me you are reading this because you want to relive a desperate, lung-busting, heart-pumping, nail-biting, tear-up of a game, and not because you want to know what you missed.
It was settled 25-24 to Wales, but only after the lead seesawed back and forth five times. There were seven tries, two of them by the dazzling young Welsh winger Louis Rees-Zammit, as well as a telling red card for Zander Fagerson, who caught Wyn Jones in the head with his shoulder at a clear-out midway through the second half.
Even then, down to 14 men, Scotland gave it everything they had, and but for a last-ditch tap-tackle on Duhan van der Merwe in the final seconds could well have won the game.
After half an hour, you would never have guessed it would end up being so close. Scotland played quite brilliantly in the first half and opened the scoring with a beautiful try.
It was set-up by Finn Russell’s wriggling break through midfield. He off-loaded to Jonny Gray who rumbled ahead, trailing a tackler from his back leg. From there the ball was worked over to the left where, after a swift and brutal clear-out, Ali Price took two quick steps to his right and eased a dainty chip on an angle into a little patch of space in the Welsh 22. Darcy Graham slipped between the defenders and arrived in time to catch it, then stepped away from Leigh Halfpenny’s last-gasp tackle to score.
Soon after, Scotland had scored another, this one a scrambling bit of improvisation off a scrum. There was a tidy bit of midfield needlework as Chris Harris worked a little loop with Russell, who threw a long, flat pass to Hogg as he galloped down the right wing. He chipped on as he had seen Rees-Zammit was out of position.
Halfpenny turned around and raced back to gather the ball, but it squirmed out of his grip as Rees-Zammit collided with him. Hogg rounded both and scored.
Rees-Zammit then got to show what he could do. Wales finally got their lineout working and won a penalty advantage they used to spread the ball wide right across the field through Nick Tompkins, who did well to turn away from a tackle and make a telling pass to Liam Williams. He fed it on again to Rees-Zammit, who stepped neatly inside Graham on his way to the line.
Halfpenny had gone off by then after a nasty collision with Graham forced him to leave the pitch with a concussion. Dan Biggar took over the kicking and missed the conversion, which made it 17-8 at the break.
Biggar made another mistake right after half-time when he missed touch with a penalty. He was replaced by Callum Sheedy not long after.
Before that Scotland had a fine chance to stretch their lead well out of Wales’s reach when a long-line set-up a wave of pick-and-go attacks on the try-line. Repelled once, Russell decided to take a tap penalty so Scotland could try again. This time they did force a hole and bundled the ball through it, too, but Scott Cummings blocked the tackler so the score was struck off.
It turned out to be a tipping point. Three minutes later, Wales scored their second, made by some smart work by Owen Watkin and Rees-Zammit, who put Williams through. All of a sudden it was a two-point game.
Worse soon followed for Scotland when Fagerson was sent off when he caught Wyn Jones as he came barrelling in to clear him out of a ruck. It was a debatable call, which came down to the referee, though there was sufficient mitigation. Even Jones said later he felt a little sorry about it all.
In the next minute, Wales sent a maul rumbling down to the line and Wyn Jones have scored. Which, you would think, should have been it. But no. Scotland won a scrum penalty and then a lineout in the Wales 22, which led to a series of attacking scrums in front of the posts. After the third of them Russell fired the ball wide across to Hogg, who burst through Watkin’s tackle to score.
Hogg hardly had time to gather his breath before he was back in it, racing back full-pelt towards his own try line in a race to beat Rees-Zammit to a tumbling grubber. Hogg won that one.
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Seconds later Rees-Zammit came again, chasing his own kick in from the halfway line. And he made it, finishing another brilliant try. Sheedy’s conversion put them one point ahead.
Even then it was not over, Scotland hammered away through the phases and almost broke through once when Hogg slipped over as he burst through and again when Watkin brought down Van der Merwe as he came hurtling down the right wing.