Townsend delighted as Scots run over Russia
SCOTLAND coach Gregor Townsend said he felt his players had done what was required yesterday to put themselves in position to dash the hopes of the tournament hosts of reaching the knock-out stages for the first time. Townsend was delighted to see his team run in nine tries in a 61-0 romp against the Russians to secure the bonus point which puts them in control of their own destiny.
George Horne became the first Scottish scrum-half to score a Test hat-trick, Adam Hastings grabbed a double while George Turner, Tommy Seymour, John Barclay and Stuart McInally also crossed and Scotland secured their first back-to-back clean sheets for 55 years.
Townsend, whose side lost their opener to Ireland before kick-starting 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 setpiece.
‘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,’ he added.
‘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, who will be assessed over the coming days. ‘We’ll get an update in Duncan Taylor, who is our only concern,’ Townsend added.
‘He’s got a thumb injury, so he’s getting an X-ray now. He may require other imaging as well if the X-ray doesn’t give us the full details. But he’s the only one we’ve got concerns about.
‘It is important that we recover well then do what we can over the next few days to be in the best condition possible to play our best rugby.’