FRIENDS turn to FOES
Townsend spent last summer coaching England’s best in South Africa... but can he transform that familiarity into an advantage as Scotland seek Calcutta triumph?
ALL the happy memories and new friendships forged during last summer’s British and Irish Lions tour to South Africa can be forgotten about over the next two months. The intel gathering and soul baring required to enable players and coaches from four nations to come together to try to get the better of the mighty Springboks — unsuccessfully on this occasion — is set to be revisited some seven months later as old team-mates become rivals once again.
It adds an additional layer of intrigue to what was already shaping up to be a compelling Guinness Six Nations campaign, one that begins with a bang next weekend with England travelling north to contest the Calcutta Cup with Scotland at a sold-out BT Murrayfield. If Scotland head coach Gregor
Townsend now knows
We’ve had more players than before on a Lions tour. It fuels belief
every one of England fly-half Marcus Smith’s weaknesses does he target those? Or will Smith, aware of what Townsend knows, change his gameplan accordingly? The potential mind games and second guessing would drive any coach and player to distraction.
Townsend, though, doesn’t see it as a huge advantage for him or his defence coach Steve Tandy, who was also part of the Lions touring party. Instead, he turns it on its head to wonder whether the eight Scottish players who also made the trip are also vulnerable, having exposed their strengths and limitations to many of the players they will now face over five crucial matches.
Asked if his involvement with the Lions gives him an advantage, Townsend moved to play down any significant benefit.
‘I think you could flip that round and say the players from other nations have worked with more Scots players than on previous Lions tours and worked with Scots coaches, both attack and defence, so is it an advantage for them?’ he retorted.
‘The advantage we may get out of it is that we’ve had more players than before on a Lions tour and the confidence they got from not only being selected but how they trained and played on that tour.
‘I’m so proud of how they set standards in training and a lot of them played Test match rugby, competing with players from other countries. So their own individual belief should be at a higher level than it was this time last year.
‘There may be micro chats around certain players, whether that’s what they do in certain scrums or someone who likes to defend a different way.
‘And we get that through our players playing in England as well. Stuart Hogg plays at Exeter alongside some England players, and Jonny Gray and Sam Skinner are there too.
‘We’ve got players at every English club so the players will be providing that information as much as what we picked up in the summer in South Africa.’
Hogg admitted he had picked up bits and pieces from being part of that tour but that the focus would be on ensuring Scotland are best placed to make a serious tilt at the title instead of worrying too much about the opposition.
‘For the boys and coaches who toured, we can pick up little bits and pieces from the England players, and the Welsh and the Irish,’ said the Scotland captain.
‘We will pick up little bits and pieces but mainly concentrate on ourselves and make sure we get everything right on both sides of the ball, providing energy and pace in everything we do.’
Smith was part of that Lions tour despite having never played a Six Nations match for England. The Harlequins fly-half looks set to finally get to savour that experience at BT Murrayfield, setting up the prospect of an exciting No10 battle with Scotland’s Finn Russell, the player he was called up to provide injury cover for during the summer trip to South Africa.
Townsend added: ‘That will be an exciting prospect if we get to that stage next week.
‘The quality during that last week in South Africa, and the way Marcus and Finn were training, was incredible. We’re delighted that Finn is with us but I’m sure England are delighted that Marcus has come through and is challenging at ten and played so well in November.
‘They are different styles of tens
to 10-15 years ago but they have a lot of shared vision and skill as to how they play the game, whether it’s passing, running game or a shorter kicking game.
‘It could be a new way of playing we’re seeing, which more and more tens are adopting. It’s more of an attacking game than just a facilitating game.’
Scotland’s Autumn Nations campaign was blighted by a needlessly high penalty count and Hogg conceded that in a championship of fine margins that wouldn’t be acceptable.
‘A large majority of our penalties came from our defence,’ he said. ‘We either didn’t roll out the tackle quickly enough or there were silly offside penalties.
‘These are things that are within our control that we can learn from and hopefully improve on because ultimately the winning and losing of Test match rugby comes down to these tiny little things that add up.
‘We really want to kick-start our campaign in the best possible way and that’s by defeating
England here in Edinburgh. We feel we’re making good strides forward with where we want to be and we’ll continue to work hard and learn and improve along the way. But we want to kick-start our campaign with a good win.’
Scotland have never won the Six Nations but Townsend confirmed they expect to at least challenge this year. ‘Can we compete for the trophy? That’s why we’re here. We believe in this group and we can go into this tournament wanting to be there right at the last week,’ he said. ‘We know how hard it’s going to be and it’s going to require maximum effort and maximum focus throughout this campaign. ‘But we’ve had experiences to put us in positions like that before and we’ve got the players available to us to really challenge every team we’ll face this year.’