Townsend seeks solution for Scots’ travel sickness

Although his focus is now Sunday’s visit of France to Murrayfield, after an unexpectedly poor showing in Cardiff, Gregor Townsend has admitted that addressing Scotland’s wretched Six Nations form on the road is now a pressing priority.

Townsend was playing in 2002 when Scotland last won in Cardiff, and their only victory in Ireland was a stats-defying 23-20 win at Croke Park in 2010.

They have not won a Six Nations match at Twickenham or in Paris, and have won only four of nine Championship matches in Rome.

“We don’t have a great away record, there’s no getting away from that,” said the Scotland head coach. “I read the stats on the Six Nations and we have to get better, we have to realise teams will have moments when they’re doing well, when the crowd’s behind them and when they maybe score a try, so we’ve got to handle that, we’ve got to be better. We’ve got to find solutions when we go to Dublin and Rome.”

Townsend is still slightly at a loss to understand why his side were guilty of a litany of errors in all facets of their play in Cardiff, especially after they performed so well in a hostile atmosphere on last summer’s tour to record a first-ever win over the Wallabies in Sydney.

He disagreed that Scotland were harried into mistakes by Wales. “A lot of our errors weren’t down to Wales rushing up and defending any differently than New Zealand did, or Australia, who are excellent defensive teams,” he said.

“We probably found as many gaps in the defence as we would have in the first 20 minutes of those games in November, it’s just that we weren’t accurate enough in our passing, our decision making, to really hit home that advantage.”

In addition to losing the ball in contact or through wayward passes, Scotland also registered a vast amount of unforced errors, with the squint line-out throws and scrum feeds.

However, lock Ben Toolis was keen to debunk any idea that Welsh tactics had caught Scotland unawares. “They didn’t surprise us at all,” he insisted.

“They were at home, in front of their own fans, so we knew they were going to come at us and that’s exactly what they did. We were just off our game.

“We simply didn’t perform to the standards of late. We just made so many mistakes and that’s always going to hurt you.”