Former Scotland international John Barclay has lamented Scotland's performance against Wales in Cardiff last weekend, believing the hosts "were there for the taking".
Wayne Pivac's men edged the encounter 20-17 in game for which the visitors were billed as favourites after their opening-round win over England and Wales' capitulation in Dublin.
But after a positive opening 20 minutes or so, the men in red got to grips with matters far better than their guests.
You can read all the fallout from the game and the latest Six Nations headlines here.
"Scotland’s performance in Cardiff was sloppy, clunky and lethargic," Barclay began in The Times.
"When your error count is so high, you concede so many penalties, your attack just doesn’t click and your maul struggles, you’re playing with one arm tied behind your back, which makes the likelihood of victory slim to non-existent. What makes this loss all the harder to stomach is that this was a Wales outfit who were there for the taking."
Barclay believes Wales "set a trap" for the Scots at the Principality Stadium and lured them into a kicking game that they really didn't want to play.
"I tip my hat to them and the way they ground out the result," he added.
"But Scotland will look back and think, ‘How on earth did we not beat that team?’ Everyone was applauding Gregor Townsend last week for the execution of the game plan against England: the quick lineout that led to the first try, Finn Russell’s tactical nous for the cross-kicks which created the second.
"Here, by contrast, Wales set a trap into which Scotland fell — the visitors were sucked into a kicking game they didn’t really want to play.
"In the first 10 minutes, there was space everywhere in the Welsh defence, and I genuinely thought that if Scotland could get the ball moving as we know they can, they could end up winning by 20 points. But it looked as if they thought they had all the time in the world until the last five minutes when the time pressure of the clock became all too apparent."
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