Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
To be at their Dublin victory
“Yeah, we’re not out of it,” said Townsend, who will be hoping France do his side a favour by downing England in Paris this weekend.
“So we understand this game is huge for us, firstly as a one-off, but also to stay in the mix on the last weekend.
“That gives the players an awful lot of motivation, knowing that if we can get a win, we will still be challenging for the title come round five.”
Townsend has made just one change to the side which regained the Calcutta Cup after a decade of failure against the Auld Enemy with last month’s stunning 25-13 Murrayfield triumph.
Edinburgh’s Blair Kinghorn replaces the injured Tommy Seymour.
However, Townsend insists it is right the rest of his side hold on to their jerseys.
“They deserve to be rewarded,” he said.
“They have played really well in the last two games against France and England.
“They beat the No 2 team in the world with an excellent performance.
“Cohesion is a big factor as well. This group don’t get a huge number of games to play together and they have improved over the past couple of games.
“They have that feeling of knowing what it takes to win.
“We’d like to think we’ll see another improvement this weekend.”