LIFT THE BLUES
Townsend wants Scots to deliver morale-boosting win
SCOTLAND head coach Gregor townsend is desperate to lead his side to a morale-boosting win over argentina tomorrow night to lift the gloom engulfing Scottish rugby.
the senior Scots went down in their first test against the home side last weekend, losing 26-18, with questions over townsend’s selection and the direction of the team.
to compound matters, the Under-20s side did little to improve the mood surrounding the Scottish game at the moment as they were embarrassingly dismantled 55-17 by Georgia on Wednesday night.
It was their 13th straight defeat and was described as ‘embarrassing’ by Sportsmail columnist andy nicol. ‘If conceding 55 points to a tier 2 country does not force fundamental changes to agegroup rugby in Scotland, what will?’ he continued. ‘It’s broken. It must change. I feel sorry for the players who have been let down. It’s not their fault.’
townsend, whose son christian is part of the Scotland Under-20s squad, entered the debate as he faced the media yesterday to announce his team for the second of three tests against argentina.
‘We’ve got to look at what other countries are doing well and the areas we need to improve on,’ he admitted.
‘Kenny Murray (Under-20s head coach), Jim Mallinder (SRU head of performance), these guys will be on top of that looking at other countries and the gaps in our system and I am sure that will all be getting reviewed after this tournament.
‘We obviously feel for the Under-20s team. We were watching their game against Georgia on the bus on our way back from training earlier this week and when they went 12-0 up we were excited for them, because we know Georgia are a quality side.
‘But it has been a tough year, a tough 18 months for them following covid. We’ve not done as well at that level, that’s clear, but there have also been some very good individuals, some very good performances and they will have learned as a group why it hasn’t worked this year and what we need to do better.’
townsend, when asked if he feared Scotland could be cut adrift at Under-20s level and have a lack of decent players coming through, said: ‘We’ve got to look deeper at what we need to be doing at age-grade level, academy level, to support our players, challenge them and give them better competition. that’s probably the big lesson in all of this.
‘You also have to remember it’s cyclical — our Under-18s beat Italy in their Six nations game and were
very close to beating England. at times, you get this but we have to keep looking at how best we get our young players through and how we’re preparing them for these competitions.
‘there are players that come through, of course there are. Ben Muncaster played this time last year in the Under-20s when they weren’t winning a game, and you’ve seen how well he’s played for Edinburgh and for us against chile. He’s one of a few examples.
‘You’ve got to look at where we are as an Under-20s team and how we want to perform at that level and how we can improve but there are always individuals there who are rising to the challenge and learning from these experiences.’
townsend has made five changes to the starting team to take on argentina. among the players dropped is British and Irish lion scrum-half ali Price, whose starting place is taken by Ben White.
Hamish Watson, who missed the first test with a shoulder injury, wins his 50th cap in the back row in place of luke crosbie with Sam Skinner taking the place of Jonny Gray in the second row.
Rory darge wins his sixth cap at openside flanker in place of Magnus Bradbury. Hooker david cherry comes in for George turner with london Irish winger Kyle Rowe set to make his international debut off the bench.
‘Ben is brilliant to work with and he’s integrated really well into the squad,’ said townsend. ‘He’s such a hard worker, usually the last to leave the training field and one of the top performers in terms of work rate.
‘He’s got a really good kicking game, is strong defensively and has an eye for a break. the three scrum-halves we have on tour are really pushing each other and we wanted to give Ben an opportunity to start. Since the Six nations, he has played really well for london Irish and got a lot more starts for them and we think this is the right game for him to start.
‘We were obviously not happy with the performance at the weekend but we’ll look at the whole tour and what players have done throughout the tour and where we are in terms of the overall selection.
‘this tour is about learning about the group, learning about who step up as leaders, learning about individuals and how they manage and thrive when they’re together for four or five weeks and also how they perform in games.
‘there will be opportunities for players on Saturday and again next week to do that and go for the win.’
townsend also gave his full support to Blair Kinghorn despite him having a poor game in the defeat to argentina a week ago.
‘Blair’s trained well, he’s part of our attack leadership group and has contributed really well in that,’ said townsend. ‘We’re massive believers in Blair in terms of what he can do individually and also how he can lead our team.’
We’ve got to look deeper at what we are doing at academy level
ARGENTINA v SCOTLAND at Estadio Padree Ernesto Martearena. Kick-off: 8.10pm, tomorrow. TV: LIVE on Sky Sports from 7.30pm. ARGENTINA; Boffelli; Cordero, Orlando, De La Fuente, Imhoff; Carreras, Bertranou; Tetaz Chaparro, Montoya, Gomez Kodela, Petti, Alemanno, Gonzalez Samso, Kremer, Bruni. Replacements: Creevy, Vivas, Sclavi, Paulos, Isa, Ezcurra, Miotti, Moroni. SCOTLAND; Hutchinson; Graham, Bennett, Johnson, Van der Merwe; Kinghorn, White; Schoeman, Cherry, Z Fagerson, Skinner, Gilchrist, Darge, Watson, M Fagerson. Replacements: Turner, Bhatti, Sebastian, Cummings, Christie, Price, Thompson, Rowe.