Rob Howley has admitted he has “a lot to dissect” after seeing Wales put to the sword by Scotland at Murrayfield.
The Wales coach watched his side fail to score any points in the second-half as the Scots pinned their opponents out on the lab board and reached for the scalpel.
After suffering the pain of a 29-13 defeat and with difficult matches remaining against Ireland and France, Howley said: “We got turned over too easily and lost the aerial battle as well, so there is a lot for us to dissect.
“We are hugely disappointed. Our second-half performance simply wasn’t good enough. Scotland squeezed us.
“We lacked quality possession and when we got it, Scotland were hugely effective in the contact area. We failed to take a couple of clear-cut chances and they proved far more clinical near our line, although we conceded soft tries by letting them get outside us.”
Howley confessed that standards had slipped since the narrow defeat to England a fortnight before.
“From our perspective the intensity and the accuracy which we had two weeks ago against England two weeks ago, particularly in the second half here, we were way off that mark.
“We were quite dominant first half but we weren’t clinical. Then we made it a little bit easier in the second half for Scotland because we turned the ball over too many times. Obviously Jonathan Davies has gone through for us, and there were other opportunities as well, but international rugby is about keeping hold of the ball.
“Scotland were very clinical in their attacks. They scored two tries, two soft tries really, because they got to the outside edge.”
Alun Wyn Jones admitted he had been left rather red faced over the strange second half penalty incident which appeared to be well within the range of Leigh Halfpenny.
Forced to kick for position, Jones was then penalised from the resulting line-out and Scotland breathed a sigh of relief.
“I would have liked to [kick it],” said Jones, who praised the contribution of Scotland back row substitute Hamish Watson. “But the kickers didn’t want to so that was that. Then I got done for blocking in the back in the line-out.”
The Scots found themselves under the cosh during a brutal first-half battle but Howley’s side only managed a Liam Williams’ touchdown and eight points from Leigh Halfpenny’s boot as they went in at the break 13-9 ahead.
It was a different story after the break though, with wings Tommy Seymour and Tim Visser crossing over as the rampant Scots racked up 20 unanswered points.
The Scots will now head to Twickenham in two weeks’ time hoping to ring up a clean sweep of victories against the Home Nations and Cotter could barely contain his pride.
“I’m really happy for a number of reasons,” he said. “We set out to win the game but at half-time we weren’t particularly well placed to do that.
“The players adjusted well after the break and I thought we scored a couple of nice tries and transferred pressure back onto Wales.
“Some of the little things we needed to tidy up and bring in some intensity. The boys did really well. We realised we were watching them play rather than playing ourselves.
“We decided we could influence the outcome if we did a few things. I’m very proud of that response.
“The boys went out and started talking the game to the Welsh and the result is that for the first time in a while we can sit here and talk about beating Wales. Hats off to the players for a great performance.”
Scotland’s victory is all the more meaningful as it ends a decade of hurt against the Welsh and was achieved without skipper Greig Laidlaw, whose Championship has been ended early by injury.
Flanker John Barclay assumed the armband but he was ably assisted by the likes of Finn Russell – whose contribution of 19 points with his boot saw the Scots to their biggest win over Wales since 1993 – Jonny Gray and Stuart Hogg as the Scots stood up to a man to make up for the loss of their leader.