OK - it's official: We Wuz Robbed, by an incompetent/corrupt (delete according to your prejudice or lack thereof) referee.
Does it make me feel any better? No - we're still oot on our earses.
Where do we go from here? Well, in 15-weeks' time, we will open the 2016 Six Nations against England. That is something to look forward to. Given their awful Rugby World Cup campaign, we may well find our oldest international rivals still in turmoil.
They will probably be bedding-in a new coach; fine man though he is, I cannot see Stuart Lancaster surviving the English mainstream media's strident demands for his head. This could mean a change of direction and emphasis.
Any way, the RWC has shown, under Vern Cotter, we are more-ready to play a modern, high-tempo, off-loading brand of attacking rugby than England. At club level, for all the example being shown by Bath, England is still wedded to having eight white Orcs up front, grinding down the opposition, before they trust the backs.
If we cannot beat England, at Murrayfield, on 6 February, we might as well chuck it in. We will seldom have a better chance to send them homeward to think again.
Ireland will face the huge task of replacing Paul O'Cnnell, and maybe one or two others, while, I feel "Warrenball" was exposed badly in the RWC. Sure, Wales will probably have most of their injured stars back, but, with a half-decent referee, we would have beaten them in the 2015 Six Nations, why not in 2016?
France and Italy also face major rebuilding jobs. Aye, maybe we are in-line for a Golden Age of Scottish Rugby, to equal the 1920s.
IT WAS good to see John Hardie signing for Edinburgh. The prospect of a back row with twin sevens, in Hardie plus one from Hamish Watson or Roddy Grant, is an intriguing one. Add Mike Coman, David Denton and Cornell du Preez and the "Gunners" have tremendous back row resources.
I was thinking, after the World Cup, that, it is maybe time the SRU splashed the cash and put a third professional team in place.
My ideal scenario would be for the SRU, IRFU and WRU to lock the CEOs of the three London-based "Exiles" clubs in a room, and didn't let them out until they had agreed to transfer from the Aviva Premiership to the Pro12.
Sponsors Guinness, would surely love it if they had these three teams on-board for their league, and the Celtic Diaspora in the Sudetenland could surely be coaxed into getting behind the teams.
Failing that, we could have a third team in Scotland. I am not sure if Aberdeen would be the ideal location, maybe Dundee. Certainly, if we were to try again in the Borders, any professional side based there would have to be prepared to move around the grounds, to deter the suggestions that Gala was being favoured which, to some extent scuppered the Reivers.
They would also have to have, a core of Borders-reared Scottish players.
We now have too-many international-class players for just two pro clubs. If we don't get a third going, and have the players SRU-contracted, they will be picked-off by the cash-rich English and French clubs, to the detriment of Scottish Rugby.
We hear the Irish government has come up with some novel tax incentives to keep the top Irish players playing in Ireland, maybe, with Income Tax being devolved to Holyrood - John Swinney could come up with something similar to help the SRU keep our big names playing at home.
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