mens
nations-championship
Ewan Ashman expressed mixed emotions after his historic hat-trick ultimately counted for little in Scotland’s demoralizing 43-21 Nations Championship loss to New Zealand.
The Edinburgh Hooker became the first Scot – and only the fifth player ever – to record a triple hat-trick in a Test match against All black people in an exciting first half in seven tries at Murrayfield which ended with the visitors leading 24-21.
But Scotland they failed to score a point in the second half as the All Blacks scored three more tries to extend their unbeaten run in this match to 34 matches since the first meeting in 1905.
“Obviously the overwhelming feeling is that we lost, and that’s the first thing,” Ashman said. “I would change all the attempts to win that game.
“Obviously, if you’d told me when I was little that I’d get a hat-trick against the All Blacks, I’d probably have taken it.
“I’m sure once I get over the emotion of the result, I can look back on it and be proud and buzz.
“My family gave the beans at the end. Maybe they didn’t feel the way I did about the game.
“They are such a quality side so it’s nice to be one of only five people to score a hat-trick against them.”
Scotland trailed by just three points at the break, although they were not at their best. Ashman admitted his side were not done justice in the second half which the All Blacks won 19-0.
“We didn’t play that well in the first half,” he said. “But we opened them up, we scored tries and we were a handful.
“If we knew we had more, if we came out playing the best we could in the second half, we felt it was a game we could win, and we didn’t do that.
“We can do more, and we must do more in the next few weeks (vs Australia and Japan).”
New Zealand’s seven tries came from Wallace Sititi, Ethan de Groot, Peter Lakai, Beauden Barrett (two), Josh Moorby and Asafo Aumua on a day they paid tribute to their long-time security chief Logan Cadwallader, who died in Edinburgh last weekend.
“We wanted to win for him,” All Blacks captain Codie Taylor said. “This week was much bigger than rugby. It’s about recognizing one of our brothers who fell and a husband and a father and a son, who was very respected in our group.
“There was a lot of emotion in the anthem, and looking through the management, you could see how much they felt it too. There was definitely a little more motivation to lead the way in the jersey.”
As a mark of respect, the All Blacks joined the Haka before the game.
“Everybody wanted to pull the jersey on, but obviously it’s not going to happen,” Taylor said. “What I heard, their thinking was, ‘we want to be a part of the Haka because that way we can actually pay our respects.’ It just shows the connection of the group and how much Loge meant to us.”
