Mercy. If you’re lucky, you’re reading this because you want to relive this match rather than because you missed it. It was a nail-biting, lung-busting, heart-pumping contest. In the end it was settled by a single point, 25-24 to Wales, after the lead had see-sawed back-and-forth. There were seven tries, two of them by Wales’s dazzling young winger Louis Rees-Zammit, who won the man of the match, as well as a red card for Zander Fagerson, who caught Wyn Jones in the head with his shoulder at a clear-out midway through the second half. Even then, down to 14 men, Scotland gave it everything they had and but for a tap-tackle on Duhan van der Merwe in the final few seconds could well have won the game. Gregor Townsend was adamant that they should have. The head coach was not impressed with the referee, Matt Carley’s, decision to send off Fagerson. He felt there were mitigating circumstances and that Carley made up his mind without waiting to see all the evidence. “I didn’t think they had much of a discussion, I didn’t think they showed enough of the angles. I thought the whole process could have been much better,” Townsend said. “Was it a clear strike of the head? On one of the angles I saw it didn’t look like it was.” Townsend was honest enough to admit that the red card was not the only reason Scotland lost. Their indiscipline cost them too, especially a run of three penalties in a row right before half-time. They had a 14-point lead at that point and were playing brilliantly. Ali Price set up their first try after a wriggling break by Finn Russell. Price aimed a dainty chip into a little patch of space in the Welsh 22, Darcy Graham slipped between the defenders and arrived in time to catch it on the full, and then stepped away from Leigh Halfpenny to score. Soon Scotland had another, this one a scrambling bit of improvisation off a scrum set up by a tidy bit of midfield needlework. Chris Harris worked a little loop with Russell, who threw a long, flat pass to Hogg as he galloped down the right wing. He chipped on again as he’d seen that Rees-Zammit was out of position; Halfpenny turned around and raced back to gather the ball, but it squirmed out of his grip as he dived and Rees-Zammit collided with him. Hogg rounded both men and put his team 17-3 up. But then came that little run of ill discipline. Scotland had lost Blade Thompson because of a brain injury and with him off the pitch, Wales got their lineout working. They spread the ball wide right across the field to Rees-Zammit, who stepped neatly inside Graham on his way to the line. Halfpenny had gone off by then after a nasty collision with Graham that meant he also had to leave the pitch with a brain injury. Dan Biggar took over the kicking and missed the conversion, which made it 17-8 at the break. Biggar made another mistake after half-time when he missed a kick to touch and Wayne Pivac took the bold call to replace both Biggar and Gareth Davies. It paid off. The game turned in a few chaotic minutes midway through the second half. Scotland had a fine chance to stretch their lead well out of their opponents’ reach when a long-line set up a wave of drives on Wales’s try-line. Repulsed once, Russell used a tap penalty to try again and this time his forwards did force a hole. Gary Graham bundled through it but Scott Cummings blocked the tackler from reaching him, so the score was struck off. Three minutes later Wales scored their second, this one made by some smart work by Owen Watkin and Rees-Zammit, who put Williams through. And all of a sudden it was a two-point game. Then Fagerson was sent off and in the next minute the man he hit, Wyn Jones, scored off a rolling maul. Which, you’d think, should have been it. But no: Scotland won a scrum penalty and then a lineout in the Welsh 22, which led to a series of attacking scrums. After the third of them, Russell fired the ball wide across to Hogg, who burst through Watkin’s tackle to score. Hogg hardly had time to gather his breath before he was racing back towards his own try line in a desperate attempt to beat Rees-Zammit to a tumbling grubber. Hogg won that one but seconds later Rees-Zammit came again, chasing his own kick in from the halfway line this time. And he made it, finishing another brilliant try. Callum Sheedy’s conversion put Wales one point ahead. But even then it was not over. Scotland hammered through the phases and almost broke through when Van der Merwe came hurtling down the right wing, but Watkin brought him down with a desperate tap tackle. In the end, there was only a fingertip in it.