TOWNSEND WANTS SCOTS TO UPSET WORLD ORDER
SCOTLAND will head into the autumn Test schedule with a simple target in the minds of the players and coaches — beating the world’s best. The arrival of Samoa into Edinburgh this evening signals the opening of this month’s international rugby window and it promises to be an exciting one for a Scotland squad seeking to follow an improved Six Nations and summer scalp of Australia with further proof that they deserve their spot in the world’s top six.
Ambition lay at the heart of Gregor Townsend’s philosophy as a player, so it should come as no surprise to discover that, as head coach, the Borderer does not view that record-high ranking as being a summit to cling on to.
In fact, he views it as a launchpad to bring disruption to rugby’s elite.
Townsend was honest last week when expressing his views on a World Cup draw that will launch Scotland against Ireland in the opening match and bookend the pool with a very testing encounter against hosts Japan.
There is the possibility of Samoa and Romania in between, and he is acutely aware that the Japanese have set their own ambitious sights on not only reaching the quarterfinals, but finishing among the top four in 2019.
Townsend did not hide from the fact that his long-term planning revolves around Japan in two years’ time and what he believes could be one of the most exciting and competitive World Cups ever.
But, having meticulously plotted every game until then, he is conscious that next weekend is the start of a tough run of fixtures and will be ideal for his desire to develop ever-increasing intensity.
The Scots will face a Samoan team at Murrayfield on Saturday that has one of those dangerously patchwork looks about it.
Their team will be unfamiliar to many, under a new skipper in lock Chris Vui from Bristol and with four of their best players withdrawn by French and English clubs.
Bath scrum-half Kahn Fotuali’i, Leicester prop Logovi’i Mulipola, French-based No 9 Auvasa Falealii and prop Paul Alo-Emile have all been pulled out, a common move by players considered more important by their clubs during Test windows.
The South Sea Islanders are believed to be on just over £200 per match for the three-week tour, and while the Samoan Rugby Union has had its critics — with playing and coaching staff questioning use of funds — they insist they are bankrupt and, indeed, that this could be their last tour.
The Rugby Football Union is apparently considering a request for a £160,000 goodwill payment to the Samoans — not a significant sum from a game at Twickenham on November 25 expected to net the hosts around £10million.
However, the Scottish Rugby Union told The Mail on Sunday they had not been asked for any cash.
Samoa’s squad had spent a week together in Surrey, unlike their summer preparation before the 2015 World Cup — when they almost denied Scotland a quarter-final spot in Newcastle.
But with players like Ofisa Treviranus, Jack Lam, David Lemi and Tim Nanai-Williams, there is enough South Seas nous and magic to exploit any rustiness in the Scotland ranks and ensure a major challenge to Townsend’s men.
Following the Samoa match, Scotland will then face six of the world’s top seven countries — they are the other nation in that order.
New Zealand and Australia are next up at Murrayfield this month followed by the Six Nations just over nine weeks later. That fixture list has whet the appetite of Townsend and his assistants Dan McFarland, Matt Taylor, Mike Blair and the lesser-spotted but crucial analyst guru Gavin Vaughan.
That quintet have analysed the strengths and weaknesses of more than 100 Scottish-qualified players this season, including new faces from south of the border Chris Harris (Newcastle Falcons) — a new rival at centre to Alex Dunbar — and 6ft 8in Leicester back-row Luke Hamilton.
The new management team aim to build on the legacy left by Vern Cotter — who had Taylor alongside him —by developing the bold, brash, in-your-face rugby, the modern equivalent of the oft-copied ‘organised chaos’.
But Townsend wants it to be faster and slicker, with defence just as physical and watertight but switching to attack more swiftly to exploit holes he believes even the very best leave when stripped of possession unexpectedly.
That was underlined last week by some of his squad selections.
However, while there are a handful of new faces — and expected debuts at loosehead prop for form picks Jamie Bhatti and Darryl Marfo — it is expected a spine of Stuart McInally, Jonny Gray, Ryan Wilson, Ali Price, Finn Russell, Huw Jones and Stuart Hogg will start and provide the kind of physical but quick, ball-playing focus the rest will be expected to feed off.
Townsend has a lengthy injury list — along with discipline issues around John Hardie and Magnus Bradbury — but an indication of the growing depth of decent strength is that only at loosehead prop are Scotland worryingly exposed.
There, Bhatti and or Marfo will be ruthlessly targeted at scrum time. But so long as McInally and WP Nel do their job, allied to the fact that Townsend wants quick set-piece ball, the newcomers’ bigger challenge will be keeping up with Test pace in defence and about the pitch.
New Zealand come into the autumn with their status as undisputed world champions only polished further by a year that has brought the Crusaders back to the top of Super Rugby and a 100-per-cent demolition of all-comers in the Rugby Championship, where they averaged 41 points per game.
They threw some hope to the rest of the world in losing a thrilling Bledisloe Cup encounter to Australia last month — albeit without six key players — which sets up the Wallabies nicely for a revenge mission at Murrayfield after the summer defeat to the Scots in Sydney.
They ran in nine tries in a 63-30 victory over Japan in Yokohama yesterday, with more testing opponents in Wales and England before Michael Cheika and his team visit Edinburgh on November 25.
Samoa, New Zealand and Australia bring very different challenges, physically and mentally, and that could provide a perfect opening autumn challenge for Townsend and his new model army as they seek to regain respect at the top table of world rugby.
He believes even the very best teams leave holes when stripped of possession unexpectedly