Ben White admits Scotland need to become more clinical to beat top teams

Ben White admits Scotland “fell short” when it mattered as he lamented their lack of ruthlessness in key moments of their Six Nations campaign.

After opening with back-to-back victories over England and Wales, Scotland’s title hopes were dashed by subsequent defeats by the world’s top two teams, losing to France 32-21 away and then 22-7 at home two weeks ago Ireland on Sunday.

Gregor Townsend’s men have done well for large parts of both games, but scrum-half White admits they need to become more disciplined if they are to have any chance of beating the elite nations.

“It’s difficult to see positive results at the moment because we rely on winning, but we’ve fallen behind,” he said. “Ireland were very good, they were accurate when needed.

“You get three or four chances against the top teams and you have to take them all if you want to win.

“Against Ireland we created three or four chances and took one and it ended up costing us. They took their chances and we didn’t.

“Our accuracy in the last third wasn’t good enough, we have to work on that before the game against Italy.

“We were in this game until about 55-60 minutes and then they turned the screw, which is disappointing.”

Scottish prostitute Fraser Brown, who came on as a substitute for the final quarter on Sunday, felt Ireland were showing their resilience in dealing with the challenge of losing their two hookers, Dan Sheehan and Ronan Kelleher, to injuries within 50 minutes.

“Ireland adjusted very well to losing two hookers in the game,” he said. “It takes something (special) for a team to be able to adjust their game so well and come out with a win.

“By the fact that they increased their lead after their two hookers left, they controlled that situation really well. I’m disappointed we didn’t put more pressure on them, especially from set pieces.”

Brown is adamant Scotland can pull themselves together for their final home game against Italy.

Despite missing the title shot, the Scots could secure the consolation prize of a top three finish if they win on Saturday.

Brown hopes they can pull off a major performance to cap a campaign that has promised so much after the first two games.

“It will be pretty easy to get us back on our feet because we have another big game on Saturday,” he said. “We started the championship very well with two wins.

“We played very well against France at times in Paris and worked our way back into the game, and against Ireland we played well again in the first half and put them under a lot of pressure.

“We know the quality we have in our squad and how well we can play, but the next piece of the puzzle is putting it all together to deliver 80 minutes of performances week in and week out.

“It’s important to win on Saturday, it’s important to finish as well as possible and it’s important for the team to grow ahead of a big summer.”