While the excitement being expressed by his players was in keeping with his own determination to exude positivity, Scotland’s coach Gregor Townsend knows his team face a different type of challenge in the forthcoming Six Nations Championship.
Saturday’s eight try romp in registering a 53-24 victory which knocked Australia’s Wallabies out of the world’s top three, was uplifting, but the shift in rankings served as a reminder of what is to come since it is Ireland who joined England and the All Blacks as a result.
“International rugby is very tough,” warned Townsend.“We’re playing against some excellent sides, seven out of the top eight sides in the world we’re taking on (this season) and this Six Nations there will be a lot of confidence and expectation but we know if we don’t get things right, if we’re not accurate, we don’t work hard then we’ll suffer defeats, but that also makes it exciting, makes us keep working, keep trying to get better all the time.
Read more: Gary Armstrong: Scots are in a great place for now but the Six Nations will be different
“The players have got a lot of knowledge from that 80 minutes and against New Zealand that we’ve got to share and say, this works, next time we do this, remember when you’re back here this is what puts teams under pressure. It’s up to us to keep working the players and use the cohesion advantages we have of having so many of our players in Scotland to really drive this forward going into that game against Wales.”
That excitement is something they can feed off, however and when, as Huw Jones has done, a player has just scored his fifth try in his last five Test appearances, it was also wholly understandable that little more than a year after he made his Murrayfield debut when scoring two tries in a narrow defeat against the Wallabies, he sees this as the start of something.
“I don’t think we’re at our peak,” he said. “We’re building something really exciting, looking to get better and we definitely can. We haven’t spoken about the Six Nations much yet. But we’ve got high aspirations. We will definitely be looking to improve on last year.
Read more: Gregor Townsend has cause for optimism but accepts that his men must not get carried away
“I think everyone has got to take us seriously now. England will still fancy themselves, they are flying and have a real winning culture at the moment. They’ll always back themselves but it’s certainly a challenge we can’t wait for. That’s the feeling in camp. We want to take on the best in the world and test ourselves against them. It will be great to face England and France at home and Ireland are flying too. The Six Nations is going to be really competitive but we can’t wait.”
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