shellacking

Those who predicted a shellacking on the pitch and a visceral uprising in the stands were proven wrong.

When Dan Sheehan finished off their third try - a thing of real beauty - the temptation was to reach for the record books because it really did feel like an epic shellacking was on its way.

“We needed that,” he said, “to help us get over that shellacking we took in Game 2.”

For Scotland, this tournament is a learning curve and after commendable displays in defeats to Bangladesh and West Indies this was a bit of a shellacking.

That was the year Democrats took, as Obama put, a “shellacking” in congressional elections.