Gregor Townsend has challenged Scotland to construct on their encouraging Six Nations marketing campaign as they bid to prime themselves for the World Cup later this 12 months.
The Scots loved their first top-three end within the championship since 2018 after beating England, Wales and Italy and shedding solely to the 2 highest-ranked groups on the planet, Eire and France.
Townsend was happy with the marketing campaign as a complete, however, having given each of the highest two robust exams, he feels there may be nonetheless loads of scope for progress inside his staff.
“When you don’t win all of your video games, you’ll look again on the video games you misplaced and marvel how you may have finished higher, however total I used to be actually happy with our togetherness, our intent, our capability to attain tries and our capability to come back again in video games once we’re down,” he mentioned.
“We’ve realized loads and we’ll be a greater staff for this expertise. We had been decided to complete larger than third. There have been so many positives for our supporters, however we all know we might be higher and we’re working in the direction of that.”
Consideration now turns firmly in the direction of the World Cup in France this autumn, with Townsend and his gamers on account of reconvene in simply two-and-a-half months to start their preparations.
Given the way in which they’ve carried out within the autumn Checks and the Six Nations, there’s a contemporary sense of optimism amongst supporters that Scotland would possibly be capable to discover a manner out of a World Cup group that additionally accommodates Eire and South Africa.
“We’ll have a while off as coaches as a result of the Six Nations is a reasonably intense interval, however we’ll be shortly again into choice ideas,” Townsend mentioned. “We’ve received a World Cup camp that begins at the beginning of June which isn’t too distant.
“We’ve received to choose a squad for that after which work in the direction of delivering our greatest rugby for the World Cup, together with our warm-up video games.
“It is going to be a really robust World Cup pool with the primary and quantity three groups in our pool, however we’re quantity 5 on the planet and we all know we will tackle any staff on our day.”
One participant nearly sure to be within the squad for France is Blair Kinghorn, who scored a hat-trick of tries in Saturday’s bonus-point 26-14 win over Italy.
The Edinburgh again, who has been used on the wing and at full-back in latest months, received the nod to start out at stand-off following harm to Finn Russell and Townsend feels the 26-year-old’s versatility is invaluable.
“He’s put a efficiency in that may put him in a greater place,” mentioned Townsend. “Him enjoying at 10 was excellent for us as a staff, as a result of he’s been our back-up (stand-off) this season and so for him to get minutes there will likely be good for the long run.
“Transferring to full-back when he can present his tempo and working recreation in that space, that’s been a optimistic for the marketing campaign.
“He did play on the wing a couple of instances for Edinburgh between December and January so we all know that’s a place he may excel in.
“He’ll be within the combine for all these positions and we additionally know he’s nice cowl off the bench. I really like the very fact he took on the road on a few events. Certainly one of his greatest strengths is his working recreation, so for him to tackle defenders near the road and get these tries was nice reward.”
