Classy individuals can help but Scots must still address team fundamentals to progress towards World Cup

Throw in a loosehead prop and a dynamic-looking Scotland team has the potential to be assembled that, if fully fit, would have every right to fancy its chances against the men who ripped England to shreds in that still hard to believe second half comeback at Twickenham on Saturday.

Consider too that Mark Bennett, Matt Scott, Ryan Wilson, John Hardie, Dunc Weir, Henry Pyrgos and Alex Dunbar were not involved in either that wondrous Six Nations Championship finale, or have gained inclusion in that fantasy fifteen and, albeit drawn from all corners of the rugby planet rather than developed in Scotland, an unprecedented array of options could present itself to Gregor Townsend and his management team ahead of this year’s World Cup.

Whether they have the capacity to shed Scotland of its record as the most predictable team in the quadrennial competition is another matter, however and, for all the excitement generated at the weekend, a fifth place finish in the Six Nations Championship hardly suggests that Scotland is poised to reach the semi-finals of a World Cup for the first time in 28 years and only the second time ever.

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Harsh as it may seem to say amidst the excitement generated by that six try sally, there seemed far more certainty in the assessments offered by England coach Eddie Jones and his players who, for the most part, accepted his accusations that they had allowed themselves to be “seduced by the scoreboard,” and had shown mental weakness the moment thing stopped going their way, than in any other explanation for the turn-around in momentum.

Townsend could offer little more meaningful than to suggest that a rise in confidence had been the key to his team’s revival, but it was impossible to ignore the post-match comments from Finn Russell, who was their inspirational figure and deservedly won the man-of-the-match award, that he and his coach had a difference of views at the interval about the way Scotland were setting about things.

With strong personalities such as Hogg and Barclay to return Russell, who has looked an ever more mature performer in the course of his season in France, can look forward to having additional on-field support in terms of responding to the situations that confront the team, but in order to have a real chance of being competitive at a World Cup there are some fundamentals that need to be addressed on the training ground.

In particular there is the matter of Scotland’s ability to attack and repel when within range of either the opposition, or their own line.

The ease with which England’s second try was scored on Saturday, as Billy Vunipola and Tom Curry strolled over from a close range lineout, was by no means the first time the Scottish pack has been too easily undone when protecting their own in-goal area.

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However, the bigger concern has to be the inability to convert pressure into points that has been repeatedly highlighted in the course of this season.

Spectacular as they were, Scotland’s tries on Saturday did nothing to suggest that anything has changed in that regard.

As ITV commentator Nick Mullins rightly observed on Saturday: “What Scotland have done with their time in England’s 22… it’s been measured in seconds, but they’ve got 31 points.”

Scotland’s coaches are as fond as any when blaming lack of accuracy for their team’s failings, of stressing the need to build through phases to break down the best defences in the game.

In that context, then, there is something slightly disturbing in the statistic that of the 14 tries Scotland have scored in this Six Nations Championship, only one has come on the back of 10 or more phases of play.

The conclusion that invites is that, as was evident on Saturday, when opposing teams drop off in intensity and offers them room to play, this Scotland team now has players with the skill and pace to strike from long range, but does not appear to have moved forward in the areas that will matter later this year.

They will have a chance from the outset to set new standards by beating a team ranked above them at a World Cup for the first time when they open up against an Ireland team that, after its surge through the world rankings in winning all bar one of 12 matches in 2018, looks battle-fatigued and suddenly vulnerable.

Presuming there are not upsets against Samoa, who represent a very different challenge at World Cups as Scotland found in coming close to being eliminated by the South Sea Islanders last time around and hosts Japan, the difficulty is that their quarter-final opponents will be the two most powerful nations in the history of the sport.

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Reliance on playing it off the cuff against what are traditionally the two most powerful rugby nations, is unlikely to see new standards set at a World Cup.

Scotland will, as on all bar one previous occasion, make it to the last eight, but to go further they have four warm-up matches in which to come up with systems and tactics that will make them more effective in the areas that matter.

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England:

As appalling as Saturday’s switch off was on Saturday, every other Six Nations coach and perhaps even those in the summer hemisphere would surely envy England’s head coach Eddie Jones the type of problems he has to resolve in the six months ahead of the World Cup.

In creative terms the gulf between their try haul of 24 and that of tournament winners Wales, who scored just 10, spoke to their effectiveness when maintaining their discipline, the loss of which was the reason they did not reclaim the title.

In the end, only that inexplicable collapse against Scotland prevented the most unsatisfying of all outcomes in the competition since, had they won Saturday’s match, England would have accrued as many match points as Wales with a superior try count and points difference, leaving only the artificial device of awarding three match points for winning a ‘Grand Slam’ to separate the two teams.

With the dynamism of Billy Vunipola’s older brother Mako, Maro Itoje and Courtney Lawes to be added to their front five alone, while young Joe Cokanasinga looks capable of adding even more to their already formidable back three fire-power, the physical weaponry is superior to any other team as it should be given the vast human resources available to England.

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If Jones can address their mental issues, as he says he intends to seek specialist help in doing, it is hard to see what will stop them from lifting the Webb Ellis Trophy.

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Ireland:

In an era that has produced unprecedented Irish success, with two of the three Grand Slams they have won in their history, two more Six Nations titles won by the national team and six Heineken Champions Cup victories accumulated by their leading provinces, Leinster and Munster, over the past 13 year, Ireland’s failure to progress beyond the quarter-final stages at any World Cup is a strange anomaly.

In particular, the way the relatively tame nature of their exits from the three World Cups that have taken place since Munster sparked their silverware spree with their Heineken Cup triumph in 2006, itself the result of sustained and ever-improving excellence in the years that preceded it, is hard to fathom, but there has been a sense that these tournaments have come along at just the wrong time for them.

The evidence of the past few weeks is that it may have happened again, since the Ireland team that has contested this championship looks a shadow of that which won 12 of 13 matches in 2018, including comprehensively out-playing the world number one All Blacks.

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Jonny Sexton, voted the world’s best player last year, has at times looked gaunt and fractious behind a pack which, led by the 36-year-old Rory Best, no longer seems to be providing the quality of possession to the stand off and half-back partner Conor Murray.

They could be in no better hands than those of Joe Schmidt, the coaching mastermind behind two of Leinster’s and three of Ireland’s most successful campaigns, but with either the All Blacks or Springboks awaiting them in the quarter-finals, he has to get them back to last year’s levels if they are to have any chance of experiencing a first World Cup semi-final.

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Wales:

Nothing has done more down the years to justify the impression that rugby teams are reflections of their coach’s personalities than the way Warren Gatland’s Wales go about their business.

A journeyman front-row forward in his playing days, the New Zealander believes in getting the basics right and looking to build from there.

This latest Grand Slam success was the prime example of that in what he mischievously pointed out during the campaign is his last Six Nations campaign as head coach of Wales, at a time when Ireland, whom he coached 20 years ago and England are also about to have vacancies.

Having become the first coach to lead two British & Irish Lions touring teams without suffering a Test series loss, Gatland claimed another unique distinction by becoming the first coach to oversee three Grand Slam campaigns with a success that saw him place his faith in the defensive brilliance of Shaun Edwards.

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No team finished the championship having scored fewer tries than the champions, Italy matching their 10 try haul, France scoring 12, Ireland and Scotland 14, with England’s attack of a different order as they registered 24.

In Southern Hemisphere conditions it is hard to imagine any team winning the World Cup with a gameplan that is so reliant on defence, but the pragmatic Gatland did say at the Six Nations launch that he believed the leading coaches would not show all of their hands in the course of this campaign, given that the world rankings suggest the prospect of a European World Cup winner is better than at any time since England’s success in 2003.

Wales would appear, then, to have won a Grand Slam while keeping their attacking plans under wraps, which only elevates the nature of the achievement.