Townsend happy it’s mission accomplished with bonus-point win

Gregor Townsend was delighted to see his Scotland team run in nine tries against Russia 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-toback clean sheets for 55 years ahead of their Sunday showdown with Japan on Sunday.

Townsend, below, 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 set-piece.

“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’ve thought n Scotland’s third biggest win of all time, after the 100-8 victory over Japan at Mcdiarmid Park, Perth, and the 89-0 trouncing of Ivory Coast at the 1995 World Cup in Rustenburg, South Africa

n Second biggest World Cup win after the Ivory Coast game

n First time Scotland have ‘nilled’ the opposition twice in a row (following 34-0 win over Samoa in Kobe last Monday) since 1964 when they beat France 10-0 at Murrayfield in the Five Nations on 4 January then drew 0-0 with the touring All Blacks on 18 January

n First team to ‘nil’ the opposition in two successive World Cup games

n A World Cup record of five times keeping the opposition to zero following Ivory Coast (1995), Spain (1999), Romania (2007) and Samoa (2019)

n George Horne the first Scotland scrum-half to score a hattrick…. although in 1910 Jim Tennant scored three tries as ‘half back’ against France in the days before scrum-half became a specialist

position.

about selection and how we manage the load of our players. It is a challenge and we know Japan have had a good rest going into the game – they’ve had good rests for all their games – but we’ve known that would be the case.”

The only negative was a thumb injury for Duncan Taylor, who will be assessed over the coming days.

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