The mid-week roundup. Everything, everywhere all at once!

It's been a mental couple of weeks in Scottish sport. The Premiership is tighter than ever, the Scottish Cup quarter finals are locked in (almost), the Calcutta cup has come home, we've played 4 matches at a World Cup, and we've been carrying team GB at the Winter Olympics, wink-wink. Here are the highlights of what's been happening lately, and what's coming up over the next few days.

Football

We were treated to two belters at the weekend involving the teams at the top of the Premiership. Hearts and Rangers served up a classic at Ibrox with the former showing they aren't going to give up their lead without a fight. Gers fans will be hopeful of catching them, however, with the gap now down to just 2 points and the team well and truly ticking under Danny Rohl.

Yet, Celtic remain the bookies favourites to finish atop the tree. It was far from plain sailing in their trip to Kilmarnock, but they impressively managed to turn around a 2-goal deficit at half-time and find a winner deep into injury time. Their next 6 games (3 in the league) could prove pivotal as they face Stuttgart (H), Hibs (H), Stuttgart (A), Rangers (A), Aberdeen (A) and Rangers (A) within just 17 days. With such competitive games coming thick and fast every few days, do they have what it takes to keep their momentum going?

Elsewhere, Motherwell are buzzing along nicely, completely under the radar. Win their game in hand and they are just 7 points off top spot. They'll certainly see the Scottish Cup as winnable, and may be able to disrupt the top 3 in the league, however it's still asking an awful lot for them to go and beat them all. Win this evening against Aberdeen and they are sitting very pretty with a quarter final against Dunfermline to come and 4th place (at least) in the league seemingly wrapped up.

Rugby

If there were ever two games that summed up the Scottish rugby team, it's the two matches we've seen them play to kick off this year's Six Nations.

In Round 1, they were comfortably beaten in Rome without putting up much of a fight until it was too late. What followed was a depressing aftermath in which both fans and the media seemed to have run out of patience with Gregor Townsend's tenure. "Tournament over, time for immediate and drastic change" was the general mindset.

What a difference a week makes. Scotland flew out of the blocks against England, taking an early 17-point lead, and never let up. It was a brilliant way to bounce back after such a disappointing and negative week. After such an impressive display it's hard to understand how this team can produce such a gulf in performance from one week to the next.

Therein lies the challenge for this Scotland team going forward; producing performances more akin to what we saw at the weekend on a more consistent basis. Can we play England every week, please?

Suddenly, however, we've gone from trying to avoid a wooden spoon to having our sights set on actually winning something. The title is a long-shot, but not outwith the realms of possibility. We should beat Wales with a bonus point this weekend, then we play France at home - a fixture we've had lots of recent success in. Finally we go to Ireland, a tough match-up against a team we struggle against, but whose powers are on the wane. If not the title, this team should certainly be targeting a Triple Crown (beating the other 3 home nations) - a feat not yet achieved by a Scottish team in the Six Nations era.

I'm getting carried away. One match at a time.

Cricket

If you didn't already know, Scotland have been at a World Cup over the last couple of weeks. Flown in as a last-minute replacement for Bangladesh, the Scots have done a remarkable job to finish what looks like will be 3rd place in their group of 5. Sadly, however, only the top 2 teams from each group progress, and the Scots are heading home.

Following the chaos of getting there and the excitement of being involved, things started with a bit of a rude awakening against the West Indies. The game was blown apart by a hattrick from West Indian bowler Romario Shepherd, and from there it was more a case of damage limitation for our boys.

Next up, however, was a commanding performance against tournament debutants Italy, and a comfortable win was on the board. Over 200 runs were posted and Italy didn't get close, doing wonders for the team's net run rate (the equivalent of goal difference in football).

A match-up against the Auld Enemy awaited in game 3, and there was a lot on the line. Having both lost to the West Indies it was effectively 'win or go home' for both teams. It would have been an almighty upset have Scotland pulled it off, and they were unfortunately beaten in the end despite putting up a decent fight.

Finally, the Scots faced Nepal, in a game played for pride more than anything else. Scotland played well but ultimately went down to a quality batting performance from the Nepalese. The resut left Scotland, Nepal and Italy on one win each, but with the greatest net run rate, the Scots took 3rd spot. Valiant effort, lads.

Winter Olympics

There is some great Scottish representation at the Winter Olympics this year, with a few athletes in particular doing well to stand out in a GB team that isn't generally prolific when it comes to picking up medals at the games.

The 10 strong curling contingent are all Scottish, with the men's and women's teams being skipped by Bruce Mouat and Rebecca Morrison respectively. Jen Dodds paired up with Mouat in the mixed competition, in which they dominated the round-robin but ended up in the agonising position of 4th for the second time running. In both other medal competitions, the men and women both have must-win matches to finish their round-robins if they are to have any chance of progressing to the final four. On balance we can hope to be picking up at least a medal of some sort between the two teams.

Elsewhere, the young Aberdonian Kirsty Muir was mightily impressive in both the Freeski Slopstyle and the Big Air competitions, only to narrowly miss out on a medal and finish 4th in both events. At just 21 years old here's hoping she can come back even stronger and make amends next time out.

We're all used to 'close but no cigar' as Scottish sports fans, but any more 4th place finishes and I might just lose my sh*t.