Scotland 17 Italy 37

The domestic female and I were at Murrayfield today as guests of a couple of close friends. Apart from the 80 minutes of the game it was a fantastic day - excellent hospitality, great company, and plenty to eat and drink both before and after the match. Maybe not the ideal training preparation, but hey - sometimes you have to have a life. My long run tomorrow will be interesting.

I have to say that the 80 minutes of rugby were quite unbelievable. For those that didn't see it, Scotland conceded 3 tries in the first 5 and a half minutes, which meant we were 21 points behind before the game had really started. We gave away the first try within 20 seconds of the start. All 3 of these tries were a result of individual errors and were entirely avoidable. Despite this appalling start the game was still there for the taking, but the Scottish team seemed to forget that 3 points were available for kicking penalties successfully. We counted 10 occasions where Scotland gave up the chance to kick 3 points from a penalty, each time attempting to score a try, but with no great success.

Having said all that, many congratulations to the Italians. Before today they had never won an away match in the 6 nations championship, so the win today was a noteable achievement on their part. But one thing has been puzzling both the domestic female and me for the last few hours. The Italian flag is green, white and red. Why then do Italian national teams (both in football and rugby, and probably in most other sports) play in blue? Answers directly to me, please, or else use the 'comments' functionality on this blog. I'd really like to know.

Finally, congratulations to John Kynaston, who completed a 32.5 mile training run on the WHW today. I received texts from him at various stages, letting me know how he was getting on. It sounds like he did really well.