Let’s go and take CENTRE STAGE

Townsend’s men no longer a support act for big boys

IT feels like a very long time since Scotland topped the bill on a Championship weekend. Oh well, they’ll get used to it. That our boys are normally cast further down the credits should be obvious to anyone with even a passing interest in rugby.

Playing a supporting role as plucky underdogs trampled by rampant title favourites? Been there.

Providing some macabre entertainment for the gloating masses in a Wooden Spoon death grapple? Done that.

But the world has changed. Scotland have changed. Which is why so many are tipping this afternoon’s opener in Cardiff as the undisputed pick of the round.

Yes, there is interest in a Wales side avowedly evolving from Warrenball to a style of rugby more enjoyable than dental surgery.

Make no mistake, though. Gregor Townsend’s men, in their first Championship under his guidance as head coach, are the main draw. And they know it.

The Scots believe themselves to be, as Townsend’s right-hand man puts it, ‘up there with the best in the world’. While some would argue that Matt Taylor’s public confidence hasn’t yet been backed up in the toughest tournament of all, he is merely echoing the new sense of swagger in a squad no longer frightened by anyone.

Yes, the Six Nations is brutally demanding. And only a fool would offer guarantees on even the most minor points. Rushing straight on in, then… here are a couple of promises for you.

If Scotland play to their best in every department today then, barring some truly outrageous twists of fate, they should — only should, mind — win.

Secondly? Unless Townsend has been playing the longest con in history, his team will stick to the expansive style that has thrilled neutrals and unnerved rivals in equal measure.

Defence coach Taylor doesn’t subscribe to the school of thought that puts the Six Nations into a completely different bracket, in terms of what you can and cannot do, to the autumn Tests.

To hear some coaches talk up the need for a more pragmatic, dour and tactically restrictive approach to the northern hemisphere’s flagship tournament, you’d think they were describing a different sport altogether.

Plenty of wise old heads, streetwise rugby men, who like their mauls to move at glacial speed and scrums to produce 15 penalties a game for the ‘team on top’, would question Townsend sticking with his beliefs. Nonsense. Utter nonsense.

Yes, his team will do the dirty work at set-pieces and defend like devils. But Townsend spent much of his playing career being squeezed into restrictive game plans. Given the supporting talents at his disposal, he’s never going to ask the same of men like Finn Russell and Stuart Hogg.

‘We’ve got our own style of play in how we want to play the game in attack and defence,’ declared Taylor.

‘Scotland are not going to change because that was the autumn and now this is the Six Nations.

‘We want to play with the ball in hand. We want it to be up-tempo, quick both in attack and defence.

‘That’s the type of game that we feel is going to benefit us. We’ll play that in the Six Nations or whenever we play.

‘Listen, Gregor is a very astute coach. He’s been immersed in Scottish rugby for a long time as a player and now as a coach.

‘The work he did in Glasgow, now with the national team, is going well.

‘We’ve always got to be improving and pushing ourselves. We had a good result in the autumn — but we need to push on.

‘We’ve had a good preparation, we’ve trained at tempo, pushed the players physically and mentally. Hopefully the benefits come through tomorrow.’

When it was suggested that what worked against Australia might not produce the same results in Wales, because the home team are more ‘in your face’ than any Southern Hemisphere softies, Taylor laughed and insisted: ‘I’d say New Zealand are in your face!

‘Wales are a good defensive team. We will have to attack really well and keep the ball for long spells.

‘But we’ve come up against the best team in the world and the third or fourth best team in the autumn — and we did reasonably well.

‘So we’ve got to back ourselves, even under pressure, to perform well. We feel we can do that. Against anyone.

‘If we play to our ability and execute really well, we’re up there with the best in the world — as we showed in the autumn.

‘We’re really confident in where we are as a nation. If we do our best in every Test, we’ll give ourselves an opportunity to do well in this tournament.’

The first game of any Six Nations carries a sort of mystique because, to be honest, what happened in the autumn provides only the roughest sort of form guide.

Yes, Scotland hammered the Wallabies and came this close to a first ever victory over the All Blacks. They won a thrilling 11-try shoot-out with Samoa, too — not defensive guru Taylor’s favourite game, for obvious reasons.

The Welsh had a more mixed bag of results, edging past South Africa and grinding to a win over Georgia, while losing to both Australia and New Zealand.

Take from that what you will. But remember that a lot of the players involved, especially for Wales, are out injured. Taylor sounded pretty relaxed, even by his standards, yesterday. Like a man who knows that all the hard work has been done.

From his point of view, key areas will be Scotland putting pressure on the inexperienced Welsh wingers, reducing the time they have to make a decision — and generating sufficient defensive speed to turn over the ball with regularity.

The Scots trained at Murrayfield yesterday, choosing to ignore the usual practice of heading to an away venue early and strolling through a captain’s run in order to settle themselves into the ground.

Some have never played at the Principality Stadium, raising some questions over whether they’ll be unsettled by the surroundings.

Let’s be honest, though. If we’re talking about something more than geography, the entire Scotland team are in unfamiliar territory.

The darlings of European rugby, that’s what the ever-quotable Eddie Jones called the Scots, wasn’t it? For a rugby nation so often dismissed as irrelevant, less than an afterthought, it makes a very nice change of circumstance. Enjoy, lads.