SCOTLAND coach Gregor Townsend admits his side still have a long way to go to unlock their full potential – but the players would take as much from yesterday’s come-from-behind Six Nations win against Italy as they did from the historic Calcutta Cup triumph against England.
The 44-year-old didn’t demur from the suggestion that his side had "got away with it" by squeaking a 29-27 bonus point win in Rome courtesy of a last-gasp Greig Laidlaw penalty in a match where they twice trailed by 12 points.
It means the Scots have won three matches in this championship for a second successive year, and will finish third, but Townsend has bigger ambitions than that some 18 months out from the World Cup and he believes the experience of fending off a rampant Italian side at the Stadio Olimpico will stand his players in good stead.
“There’s two ways to look at it,” said Townsend, who had cut an angry figure at half time, replacing his entire front row with the Scots fortunate only to be trailing 17-12. “We can analyse the game, in which we disappointed in parts, particularly the first half. Or we can stress that we put an improved performance in the second half and found a resilience and a togetherness to find that win. It is great to pick up an away win, to finish with three wins. Today’s game will be as valuable as the win against England in terms of experience this group has and being able to beat teams when you are not playing your best.
"Italy can feel that it was one they were in control of for most of the game. Our fitness was a big factor, and we went ahead not with just the last kick of the game, but two or three minutes before that.
“To get three wins in such a competitive championship, three wins, we do realise our history, we have not won three times that often, that is OK. But we want to do better than that. We want to build on what we have done this year. We still have a long way to go to reach our potential.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel