WE’LL KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON

No changing style, insists Maitland

IF THEY want to be great, first they have to be good. If they want to be a team capable of shaking up the established order at a Rugby World Cup now just 18 months away, Scotland cannot afford many more backwards steps.

Gregor Townsend is pretty clear about how this group will reach the promised land of challenging for every major prize in the game.

And it won’t be by aping the kick-chase-catch-repeat style that just buried his boys under four tries on a day of Six Nations glory for Ireland.

Come what may, he and his Scotland side will stand or fall by sticking to the up-tempo running game that repeatedly carved the Irish open — and left a good two-and-a-half tries out there on the field at the Aviva Stadium.

‘We’re not going to change the way we play,’ declared winger Sean Maitland. ‘We want to keep expressing ourselves, keep having fun. It’s just the small details that let us down against Ireland.

‘When you come in with that mindset of wanting to play our way, we’re not going to play that way all the time.

‘We’re going to conserve energy. We will play in the right parts of the field.

‘We showed in the games against France and England that we can change it up.

‘But, when you make breaks, you have to finish. We made four or five great line breaks here and didn’t finish.

‘You’ve probably heard it before, from the coach. But, when you play away, you have to take your opportunities.

‘We probably left a good three tries — maybe even four — out there.

‘The young fella could have had a hat-trick. But you’ve got to take these opportunities when you create them.’

The ‘young fella’ in question is Blair Kinghorn, whose first start brought a first try for Scotland — and enough frustration to keep him tossing and turning between now and kick-off in Rome on Sunday.

He’s a big lad, is Kinghorn. Somewhere between 6ft 3in and 6ft 5in, depending on who you believe.

But he would have needed to be eight foot tall, as well as being equipped with a jet pack, in order to capture a couple of the ‘passes’ that should have put him in for a couple of touchdowns on Saturday.

Among the most glaring sitters missed against the Irish, nothing compares to Huw Jones somehow missing Stuart Hogg in a position to amble in under the posts. Although Hogg messing up a similarly promising scenario comes close.

‘Shuggy’s form has been first class — and Hoggy, you know what you are going to get from him,’ said Maitland.

‘But they’re both massively disappointed. You could tell. The whole back division was massively disappointed.

‘How we created the tries, there is some optimism there. And those guys are quality players — I’m

The chances were there. We left three or four tries out on the pitch

sure they’ll bounce back. They will work out this week and hopefully create more chances next week.

‘Of course we’re hard on ourselves when we analyse the match. That’s what we demand of each other.

‘That’s what we demanded of ourselves ahead of Ireland. We weren’t complacent.

‘Obviously, coming off a massive win against England, we still set the bar high.

‘That’s what we need to do, if we’re to keep progressing — because we know where this team can eventually go.

‘The onus is on the backs. We need to step up and finish those opportunities.

‘It’s about skills under pressure. And that comes from preparing properly.

‘We prepared really well during the week — and Gregor always puts our skills under pressure, especially when we’re fatigued.

‘Those are the things we still need to massively improve on. Next week.

‘If we had taken those chances, it would have been different. Big time.

‘You saw it. We wanted to keep the ball alive and we wanted to play rugby.

‘You know, when we want to stick to that gameplan, we have to hold the ball.

‘We just made a few too many mistakes and that was always going to cost us against a really good Ireland team.

‘But I could see that they had their hands on their knees at times. We would have backed our fitness. Our skills obviously were second best.’

It’s hard to escape the fact that, in maybe four out of the five areas that mattered, Ireland were just that bit better than Scotland. Better drilled. More hardened.

Italy should pay the price for Scotland’s disappointment in Rome this weekend, of course. With the finishers in the side desperate to do some damage actually finishing.

Maitland said: ‘Of course, yeah. That’s why we play the game. We want to have fun, we want to score tries.

‘When we’re not doing that, and obviously we know we can do that, we’re gutted — and we want to put things right.

‘We’re already talking about next week. The weekends roll on pretty quickly in the Six Nations and that’s the good thing about this game.

‘We’re going to look at the film and analyse where we need to improve.

‘But it’s pretty obvious. Discipline and finishing.’

If the Irish provide a yardstick for where all Six Nations teams should want to be, it’s helpful for Scotland to know that they’re in the same World Cup group.

When these teams meet in their opening Group A fixture in Yokohama on September 22, 2019, might the balance of power have shifted towards the men in blue?

‘Look, we know we’ve got them in the World Cup — but there are a lot more games before then,’ said Maitland.

‘It is probably in the back of everyone’s heads. But we know we’ve got a long way to go, if we’re to get to Ireland’s level and how they finish games off.

‘We know there’s still a lot of hard work needed to get there.’