Townsend impressed after Russia thrashing

Gregor Townsend was delighted to see Scotland run in nine tries against the Russians to secure the bonus point which, barring intervention from Typhoon Hagibis, puts them in control of their own destiny.

George Horne became the first Scottish scrumhalf to score a Test hattrick, Adam Hastings grabbed a double while George Turner, Tommy Seymour, John Barclay and Stuart McInally also crossed and Scotland secured their first backto-back clean sheets for 55 years.

Townsend, whose side lost their opener to Ireland before kickstarting their campaign with a 34-0 win over Samoa, said: “Credit to the players for that, to keep going hard in defence. In the last two games our forwards have delivered in a number of areas, especially around the set-piece.

“Russia had an excellent scrum and maul and are very physical, but I thought our scrum was excellent. Straight away we put them under pressure and our maul got better. We forced mistakes at their lineout so that was good to see.

“You look at getting the bonus point, first of all. If we hadn’t got that then Sunday would have been even more difficult.

“The four-day turnaround was always in the schedule. We have thought about selection and how we manage the load of our players. We have thought about how we best approach the next few days.

“It is a challenge and we know Japan have had a good rest going into the game – they have had good rests for all their games – but we’ve known that would be the case.”

The only negative from the victory was the thumb injury picked up by Duncan Taylor.

“We’ll get an update on Duncan Taylor, who is our only concern,” he explained.