Townsend gives his backing to stand-off

GREGOR TOWNSEND has backed Blair Kinghorn to bounce back next weekend following his agonising late penalty miss against Australia in last night’ s Test against Australia.

The stand-off was off target with a 79th-minute shot of goal which would have secured a fourth consecutive win over the Wallabies, and Townsend revealed that the 25-year-old was despondent in the changing rooms after the match.

But the coach stressed that his faith in Kinghorn – who he has earmarked as the man to wear the crucial No.10 jersey ahead of Finn Russell as the build-up to next year’s World Cup intensifies – is unwavering.

“Blair will feel it more than anybody,” said Townsend. “In the dressing room afterwards he was down, so I talked to him about the technical side of things as he can’t dwell on a kick that doesn’t go over in the last minute of the game, or anytime.

“I know it is easy to say but it is about what you learn from these situations. Is it keeping your head down longer? Is it the follow through? What technical things do you have to work on?

“Obviously it is going to hurt but that is sport – the width of a post decides whether you win or lose sometimes.”

Townsend added that he has no plans to move kicking duties away from Kinghorn when Scotland play Fiji next weekend despite that costly miss.

“He has been kicking well in training,” the coach said. “In the third Test against Argentina he only missed one and that was off the crossbar. So, he has kicked well for us in tough environments before.

“He has to use this as a learning for him so the next time he gets the chance he knows what to do technically.

“He did a lot of things we wanted him to do well, and he led the team in attack and had done that all week in training as well.

“As far as our attack goes, I don’t think we fired that many shots in the first half and played a little bit inside of ourselves when we got in the opposition 22 in particular.

“But that changed in the second half when there was more movement of pass and shifting the target, which got more of our ball carriers into play and we created opportunities.’’