Scotland the brave, gallant loser or plucky underdog? - Vladimir McTavish

​​Scottish sports fans love it when their team wins. Given that this happens less than 50 per cent of the time, we are also suckers for being cast as gallant losers or plucky underdogs or coming close and still losing, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Scotland's Finn Russell watches the TMO review during a Guinness Six Nations match between Scotland and France at Murrayfield last Saturday

What we most enjoy, however, is being the victims of a dreadful refereeing decision.

Last weekend, Scottish rugby fans were able to revel in all four emotions as Scotland appeared to have lost, then appeared to have won, then were told they had actually lost.

Not by the referee but by some guy watching the game on a telly. The sense of injustice was not limited to Scotland, it reverberated around the globe.

All over the world, one can fetch up in a bar and find a bunch of Scottish people screaming “ We wiz robbed”. And so, last Saturday night I found myself in a sports bar in Perth, Australia watching Scotland v France at Murrayfield on a big TV screen.

When Scotland scored that late winning try, the bar erupted – apart from a handful of French fans who suddenly became very quiet.

The referee wasn’t sure so he called upstairs to his “Television Match Official” who then re-watched the try being scored several times, constantly changing his mind.

Eventually he and the ref decided it wasn’t a score. Cue outraged mayhem in Patriots Sports Bar in Northbridge, WA and I’m guessing, many other drinking holes from Aberdeen to Auckland.

I had drunk four pints, and I was 10,000 miles away. But even then I could still see it was obviously a try. How can some bloke who was stone cold sober and only inches away from the action have failed to reach the same decision?

Video assistant referees in football have attracted even more criticism than rugby TMOs.

I think video refereeing is a good thing, but perhaps both sports need to re-think their strategy.

In football, some guy in an office somewhere makes the decision. In rugby, the TMO is actually inside the stadium and also watching TV replays. Neither scheme appears 100 per cent accurate.

Maybe, instead of VAR or TMOs, borderline decisions should be referred to a bunch of really drunk blokes in a pub.

In my experience, they have never get it wrong. Ever.