The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
Townsend still man to bring country glory
Zander Fagerson insists Gregor Townsend is still the man to lead Scotland forward.
Questions have been raised over the head coach’s Dark Blues future as his side’s miserable 2019 ended in World Cup failure.
The Scots followed up a dismal Six Nations campaign – where they finished second bottom – by crashing out at the pool stage for just the second time.
Former Scotland scrum-half Andy Nicol claims his old teammate is under pressure but Townsend has already declared his desire to fight on and turn his team around.
And he has got the support of Glasgow prop Fagerson.
The forward said: “I’m 100% backing Gregor, definitely. If you read everything (that’s written about the team), you wouldn’t play rugby.
“We’ve not been good enough. We know that. There’s been some pretty harsh internal reviews. We’ll take our learnings from it. If we learn from it, it will be worthwhile.”
Scotland made the worst possible start to Pool A as they were thumped by Ireland in Yokohama but kept their hopes of reaching the last eight alive with back-to-back wins over Russia and Samoa.
But Townsend’s team had no answer to the relentless energy of Japan during the climax to their group on Sunday, with the hosts blowing them out of the competition with a 28-21 triumph.
Townsend started with his tried-andtrusted campaigners against the Irish but turned to a younger crop including the likes of Jamie Ritchie, Magnus Bradbury and Darcy Graham after seeing his veterans flop against Joe Schmidt’s men.
The experience could yet be the making of those World Cup rookies but Fagerson – himself just 23 – refused to use a lack of caps as an explanation for Scotland’s exit.
“We were here to do a job but we didn’t get it done,” he said. “I hate this old age thing, if you’re good enough to play you play. It doesn’t matter how old you are.
“That’s not an excuse, we just weren’t good enough on Sunday. But we’ll learn from it.”