Townsend walking into the unknown

SIX NATIONS COUNTDOWN:

THE usual buzz of anticipation that emerges at the start of every Six Nations has been tempered this year by an air of uncertainty. With Covid-19 having strengthened its grip on the rugby calendar — leading to the suspension of European fixtures and forcing domestic games off — for a while it began to look possible that there might be no tournament at all this year.

That worst-case scenario seems to have been mercifully avoided for the time being, although the absence of supporters undoubtedly dilutes the tournament as a spectacle. England versus Scotland inside a near-empty Twickenham in just under a fortnight will be a surreal occasion.

The staccato nature of the season has not helped coaches with their planning either.

Gregor Townsend already has a fair idea of the line-up he wants to field in that opening Calcutta Cup clash but admits the recent raft of postponements make it harder than normal to gauge just which players are in form.

Similarly, the Scotland head coach is somewhat in the dark about the opposition. With Premiership Rugby having chosen not to fill the gap left by the temporary cessation of Champions and Challenge Cup hostilities, this traditionally busy weekend in the rugby calendar has been left virtually empty.

Throw in the disruption caused by the positive test recorded by England forwards coach Matt Proudfoot that has forced head coach Eddie Jones into isolation, then it is little wonder that Townsend isn’t quite sure what to expect over the coming weeks.

‘I would say it is more unpredictable this year,’ said the Scotland coach. ‘If we’d been told going into the

Six Nations that some of our players would have only played two games in two months, then we’d have thought that’s not great preparation.

‘But then you look round at the other nations and some players haven’t played any games. It’s going to be interesting how it develops.

‘You might get players that are fresher, that have been able to do real conditioning work, and who are flying come Six Nations time. Or they might be rusty.

‘England will be in a similar boat to us. France are the team who have had the most games between Autumn Nations Cup (ANC) and not having a huge amount of Top14 games called off. Some of their players were also released back and played for their clubs in December.

‘It’s really good for us that Edinburgh and Glasgow played each other last weekend. It was an intense game, a really good work-out for our players. We feel that where the players were in that game, the majority of them looked in great condition.

‘We had a long time with our players at the ANC up until December so there’s not been a huge gap between then and now.

‘So it should be relatively easy to get our players back up to speed and back into the way we do things.

‘But there are certainly more challenges around the environment and protocols and tests and all the rest of it that we’ll have to adapt to and overcome because that’s going to be a factor in how well we perform.’

Townsend had sympathy for the situation Jones finds himself in but felt that the switch to online communication over the past 12 months has meant being absent is not as critical a factor as it once was.

‘It’s obviously a frustration (for Jones) but we’re all pretty much self-isolating this week anyway, with a lot of meetings being conducted by Zoom.

‘When you come into camp, that would be the frustration. But we’ve been used to communicating with our players through conference calls or Zoom.

‘We do our team meetings in a massive lecture theatre with players spread out. It’s just another challenge we’ll all have to face.’

Scotland avoided any coronavirus cases throughout the Autumn Nations Cup but Townsend knows they can’t let their guard down.

‘We’ve been lucky that we’ve avoided any cases in the autumn to our staff or players but we know that the chances of picking something up are quite strong,’ he added.

‘Almost every club in England has (had cases) this year and now we’re seeing it in international teams. So we’ve just got to do all we can to make sure it doesn’t affect us by picking it up or if we do pick up the virus by making sure it doesn’t affect the preparations and performance of the team.’

Those protocols make it more difficult to call up players in the case of injuries, especially at the key positions of scrum-half and stand-off where Townsend has named just two specialists for each slot. But he believes there is enough versatility in the squad to cover.

‘We’ve got a number of players who can do that,’ he added. ‘Stuart Hogg was covering there in the ANC in a couple of games, obviously James Lang has covered there, Cam Redpath has covered there and Blair Kinghorn went in for 10 minutes at No10 last weekend.

‘So it’s a position we’ve got players that have played there at a younger age that might be able to move into, in training, or even a game.

‘Regarding No9, Jamie Dobie’s been invited in to train with us, so he’ll cover anything if need be at training but we know Sam Hidalgo-Clyne is available if we need to call on him.’

Townsend admits he knows who he would like to send out at Twickenham but, given the current climate, is taking nothing for granted.

‘I’ve got a rough idea. But you don’t want to write it down because we’ve had guys playing this weekend and it’s likely we’ll have guys playing the weekend before we play England,’ he said.

‘With competition for places we haven’t made (some) decisions, but we also know who has played well for us and who we believe will give us the best chance of winning against England. We’ll cross our fingers we have everyone to select from come the Monday morning of that England week.’