Towny: We’re not three years from Ireland

GREGOR Townsend, the Scotland head coach, last night insisted his side can close the gap on Ireland before the two teams face one another in next summer’s World Cup in Japan.

Townsend sought to clarify his comments made on Saturday in the wake of his team’s 28-8 defeat in Dublin when he said that he believed the Scots were perhaps three years behind the Six Nations champions and Grand Slam hopefuls.

He insists he meant that this remarkable Ireland team are well ahead of his side at this moment in time, but the progress being made by John Barclay and the rest means he is confident that a year from now there won’t be much between the two.

“I didn’t mean we’ve got three years to catch them up, I hope we can do it much quicker than that,” said Townsend. “This [Irish] team has a lot of experience together, lot of players in their late 20s having come through together, winning championships, being in last-game deciders for championships.

“It’s been relatively recent that we’ve won three games in the championship, beating England for the first time in 10 years.

“The more games we’re involved in that are close, or we win, we’ll get that confidence and take us to a place where we’ll contend more regularly, and then beat teams like that.”

Scotland finish off in Rome this Saturday against an Italian side as poor as any that has taken part in the Championship.

Three wins from five is as good as Scotland have done since Italy joined the Championship in 2000, but Townsend will warn his players that the Italians will have earmarked this game as the one they had a chance of winning.

“That’s going to be a tough game,” said the head coach. “They’ve probably had a red circle on March 17 for a while, that home game against Scotland.

“We’re just looking for progress, and that means from our perspective we’ve improved in aspects I’ve mentioned before and we’re a really tough team to play against.

“If that leads to wins even better, but we’ve got to make sure that progress continues next week. We’ve put a lot of effort into this Championship and there’s been some highs and lows, but at the end of the championship I think we will be happy with what we’ve achieved.”

Hamish Watson, meanwhile, believes Scotland are a year away from where they want to be as a Test side.

There were positives the never-say-die flanker could take from the defeat in Dublin but he’s no fool and knows that mistakes of the avoidable kind badly cost his team.

Ireland would probably still have won had passes gone to hand in terms of Scotland scoring tries or presenting Ireland with they’re opening score; however, had these errors been cut out, the game would have been a lot closer – and then you just never know.

As it was, Ireland took their chances and in the end were well worth their bonus-point win.

Watson believes that after a summer tour and this year’s Autumn internationals, a different Scotland, a better Scotland, will be seen at the 2019 Six Nations.

“This was a lot closer than Cardiff,” he said. “I honestly think we are getting closer but we are still a year or so behind. Hopefully we will develop that team culture and get the away wins.

“You saw what happened against them at home last year when we played really well. Away from home is an entirely different story.

“We created opportunities here that we maybe haven’t in the past. Next year we have them at home and then in the World Cup.

“It’s really frustrating. We did alright out there but there were too many small errors that crept in at the wrong time. We created a lot of chances…it was very different to the Wales game because we were right in it and making good line breaks and opportunities but not finishing them off. That cost us.

“There were some big errors in the fact we made the line breaks. But it was in the exit zone as well - giving them easy exits and giving away silly penalties there. That took the pressure off them. The big errors were annoying.”