Former Scotland captain Rory Lawson believes referee Nic Berry was influenced by a passionate Cardiff crowd as he pinpointed exactly where it started to go wrong for the visitors against Wales.
The Principality Stadium hosted a sell-out Six Nations crowd for the first time in two years on Saturday as Wayne Pivac's side ground out a tight 20-17 win just a week after defeat in Dublin.
While Wales often cite a partisan home crowd as their 16th man on the field and the motivation the fans offer is well-known, former scrum-half Lawson claims it may have had an effect on the man in the middle as well during the tight game.
"The influence that this crowd has on the players, I think they grow, they have an element of having a superhero costume on underneath their strips," he told the Rugby Union Daily podcast.
"But I also think it influences the officials and Nic Berry, and I feel that in a game that is as close as that... those small decisions from the officials make a big difference. When you actually break it down and pick through the bones of everything, it's been a game that's been decided across a small number of moments that have added up.
"Whether you talk about the Dan Biggar drop goal, I think if Scotland had won you could have easily looked at a penalty 20 minutes in when Wales, I think it was Jac Morgan, went into kickchase before it had been played onside. Those are the moments that you forget about when it comes to the 80th minute but as they accumulate across the game, they all play a massive influence."
Scotland were on the wrong side of a 13-8 penalty count in the Welsh capital and, in Lawson's view, an early warning from Berry about further infringements at the ruck resulting in a yellow card had a major bearing on the Scots' ability to give their all.
"When you get that warning, you understand that you've got to be squeaky clean and that means you lose intensity in and around that breakdown," he said.
"Those little fine margins that you'd maybe have a little nibble that isn't going to get you penalised but might slow the ball down by half a second which gives your defence half a second longer to get organised.
"As it is, they just held off those and it gave Wales the opportunity to potentially win the collision, get slightly better ball and generate that momentum that in a game of such fine margins, you're looking at the minutiae of the influence that that has. I think it had an influence.
"Scotland were on the wrong side of a purple patch whereby Wales could generate some momentum and it came about early from that warning and Scotland didn't do enough to wipe the slate clean with Nic Berry, whereby they spent five minutes in the Welsh 22 and then start planting some questions in his mind about the Welsh defence or a yellow card. That was always there and it just continued to manifest itself in their actions, and there was a marginal drop in intensity."
As for Gregor Townsend's men missing their lineout throws, Lawson added: "You don't get your set-piece lineout strike right on three occasions, you're shot's gone, you've got to try and build a house on sand and it's not all that easy."
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