DOING NICELY
Townsend’s job now safe as Scotland restore pride with grit and substance
BEYOND the Finn Russell soap opera, Scotland have emerged from this Six Nations campaign without the need for any major inquests or self-recrimination. Their performances across the four games were, by and large, positive. Certainly, they were a vast improvement on what had gone before. The World Cup was always likely to be a catalyst for change. Indeed, 2019 brought a wearying sense of deflation and despondency around the national team.
The narrative surrounding Gregor Townsend heading into this year’s Championship was that he was now a man on borrowed time as head coach. But that has changed. Chinks of light have appeared through the dark clouds and supporters now have grounds for cautious optimism based on what they have seen over the past six weeks.
Admittedly, two victories on the bounce do come with a slight caveat, given that one of them was against a truly feeble Italy team.
But it was the victory against a Grand-Slam chasing France side last weekend which has bought Townsend some time. A fair chunk, it could be argued.
There is no way that the SRU will pull the plug on him now after such a rousing performance. He’s here to stay for the foreseeable.
Townsend will lead Scotland into their summer tour to face world champions South Africa twice in Cape Town and Durban, followed by a clash with New Zealand in Dunedin.
Beyond those daunting fixtures comes the autumn internationals against Argentina and Japan, with another clash against the All Blacks at BT Murrayfield rounding off their schedule for 2020.
It would have been intriguing to watch Scotland take on Wales in Cardiff yesterday, had Six Nations organisers not called it off at the ludicrously late juncture of Friday afternoon.
The Scots were chasing a third straight win in the Championship for the first time in the Six Nations era at a venue where they haven’t won since 2002.
Townsend stated pre-match that the Cardiff game would be the team’s ‘biggest challenge of the year’ — the acid test of their new-found grit and resilience.
Clearly, in the middle of a global health crisis, a sense of perspective is required. It’s important to acknowledge that, ultimately, the correct decision was made to cancel the game.
But it’s one which could have been made 24 hours earlier at the very least, thereby saving thousands of fans a lot of hassle and expense.
As they reflect on a fragmented championship, then, Scotland supporters can be pleased with the way in which their team has evolved since the World Cup shambles.
From having a ruinous tendency to misfire and shoot themselves in the foot, the Scots have gone full metal jacket in the past few weeks.
With just four tries conceded in their four matches, they can boast the best defensive record of any of the six nations. For that fine achievement, new defence coach Steve Tandy deserves huge credit.
So, too, does Pieter de Villiers for the way he has re-energised the
Scotland scrum and made it such a potent attacking weapon in a relatively short space of time.
Those factors should be the main takeaway for Scotland from this campaign; their success has been forged in the fires of their forward pack.
Their array of flying machines in the backs have so often stolen the headlines in the past, with Townsend’s expansive brand of rugby to the fore.
But, at long last, the pack have finally found their bite. They have refused to be bullied and buckle in the way they had done in the past.
No two players have typified this more than Jamie Ritchie and Hamish Watson, the Edinburgh flankers who have operated in tandem so brilliantly in the back row.
Trading blows in the back row does not lend itself to a career of longevity. In the Six Nations in particular, it can be brutally attritional due to injuries. To their immense credit, however, both Ritchie and Watson played all 320 minutes of Scotland’s four matches. They made themselves irreplaceable and undroppable.
The same can be said of props Rory Sutherland and Zander Fagerson. They started all four matches and were in line to make it five in Cardiff.
Under the guidance of De Villiers, they have been destructive at the scrum and, fitness permitting, will both start against the Springboks.
The delicious subplot to those matches will be the British and Irish Lions’ tour to South Africa that follows 12 months down the line in the summer of 2021.
If the likes of Watson, Ritchie, Sutherland, Fagerson, Jonny Gray and Co can perform well against the world champions, then the number of Scottish Lions could be vastly increased from what we have seen on the past few tours. One of the other major positives for Townsend has come as a by-product of the Russell saga. Namely, the invaluable experience being hoovered up at Test level by Adam Hastings.
Ireland fly-half Johnny Sexton didn’t make his Test debut until he was a 24-year-old. Hastings is still only 23 — but has 20 caps already.
The Glasgow Warriors star said after the France game there is a sense among the squad that they now enjoy defending, when perhaps that wasn’t the case in the past.
And that’s the nub of it. Scotland have not been anywhere near as flashy or flamboyant during this campaign and have actually looked all the better for it.
They have put steel and substance before style. In doing so, they have restored a sense of pride and belief to a nation which had almost given up on them.