IT can be lonely at the top.

For Gregor Townsend, there’s been plenty of time since Scotland’s disappointing exit from the World Cup in Japan last year, giving the head coach the opportunity to mull over what went wrong, and what can be improved upon.

It’s been over three months since the Scots trudged off the field in Yokohama with defeat to the hosts condemning them to an early exit and they headed home before the knock-out stages got underway.

And so, as the Six Nations draws closer, the pressure builds on Townsend to make sure his men produce the goods over the next couple of months.

However, the head coach insists that he does not feel under any extra expectation this tournament, despite the feeling that at least a couple of wins are necessary to shake the lingering disappointment of the World Cup.

“No is the answer,” he replied to the question of whether or not he feels under more pressure this tournament.

“That’s because I feel so much privilege to be in this job, to deliver my best. It’s not coaching that delivers sudden changes to how the team plays, it’s a coach working with his coaches and his players and I feel that anyway.

“Also there’s a determination to get things right because we weren’t consistent enough last year and that’s really disappointing.

“I want us to be consistently a team that’s tough to beat and that is able to impose their strengths on the opposition as well.”

Townsend has made a number of changes from the World Cup, notably bringing in six uncapped players to his Six Nations squad, as well as making Stuart Hogg captain.

And so as much as he has had time alone to consider what needed to be altered in the aftermath of Japan, he has had significant input from a number of other sources.

“It’s good to have people you can talk to,” said Townsend.

“It can be a busy time but to have people around you is obviously a support and those tend to be your assistant coaches, your management. We have guys like (sports psychologist) Damian Hughes who’s worked probably more with the coaches than the players, and other people that we bring in are great to chat to.

“Fellow coaches – I’ve met a lot of coaches between November and the beginning of January whether they were ex-coaches like Jim Telfer and Ian McGeechan, I spent time with them, coaches who are currently coaching at a high level, other international coaches.

“That’s the opportunity you have as an international coach - you can sit down and just share experiences, get learning from them, and I’ve been lucky over the last few months I’ve been able to do that.”

The lessons from Japan were, says Townsend, plentiful. Of the three games, two of which ended in losses, the most disappointing was the 27-3 mauling by Ireland that came in the team’s opening match.

More than the scoreline, it was the performance that was so dispiriting and with the Irish first up for Townsend and his men at the Six Nations a week on Saturday, things must be tightened up if the result is to be closer, or even reversed.

Townsend has opted to change things up for this Six Nations build-up, with the squad travelling to Spain in the week prior to the match at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin.

The warmer climes are an obvious positive to the trip but there has been more behind it than purely getting a bit of sun. And with the Scots having recorded only a single win away to the Irish in the past 20 years, Townsend’s men are going to need to produce something special if they are to start their Six Nations campaign with a win.

“It’s more because it’s an away game (to start) this year,” he said.

“We’ve seen other teams go to Spain and Portugal, and England went from Portugal straight to Dublin and won so that’s the plan for us too. We had a really successful camp in Portugal so if that hadn’t gone as well then we probably wouldn’t have looked at doing it again. There’s that feeling of being together.

“We’ll get out there to Spain, have really intense training and we go to Dublin with a mission to get a win.

“We know we haven’t got a great away record in the Six Nations. But we’ve got to learn from occasions when we haven’t delivered our best performances away from home. We need to look what we do early in games so we’re still in fights in second halves. We’ve got to make sure we are in games, tough to beat but have confidence that we can win there.”

There has been a suggestion that if Townsend does not have a good tournament, his time as national coach will potentially come to an end post-Six Nations.

But despite the signs that the Scots will be up against it, particularly with only two games, against England and France, taking place at Murrayfield, the odds are stacked against the side.

But Townsend is confident that the kick-back from the World Cup, coupled with the good form his players have shown in the past three months with their clubs and his improved coaching knowledge, bodes well for the tournament.

“I feel confident in the group, confident in what this team can achieve and I feel like I’ve learned as a coach and I still feel hugely grateful to be in this role,” he said.

“If it works out, great, it’s a massive honour and privilege to be Scotland coach and I’ll give it everything. I do believe that we’ll be better for the experience. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t and that’ll be frustrating but it won’t be down to lack of effort from us as coaches and players.

“Coaches and teams, you don’t win every game, the All Blacks don’t win every game, they’re on 80 percent. You learn from defeats, you learn from experiences that are tough at the time but it’s how you respond as a group and I’ve seen our players respond and the coaches will respond as well to what we learned and that’s a big challenge for us over the next five games.”