It has been a rollercoaster of a Six Nations Championship for Scotland who have hit the highs and the lows, admitted Gregor Townsend after they wrapped up their tournament with a scrappy late win in Italy.
Scotland snatch Six Nations victory over Italy with late Greig Laidlaw penalty
The head coach said the group had probably played to their potential for about four of the 10 halves of the games they had played, but even when performing well he saw room for improvement.
“There will always be things to improve,” Townsend said. “The game against England was a great performance and a great win because of what it meant for the country, but having watched it a few times I know we could have been better – and that was probably our best performance.
“We demand a lot of our players. We know they can deliver and it is about doing that over 80 minutes and also away from home against different opposition. That’s the challenge we have. This is a brilliant championship. The standard of rugby has gone up over the past few years, it is very hard to win away from home.”
Statistically, an argument can certainly be made that Scotland are on the way up. Though they finished on 13 points in the Six Nations table, a point worse off than a year ago, the last campaign came with the advantage of a cycle where they had three home games.
Two years ago, when they had the same cycle as this year, they would have had nine points under the current scoring system.
The other significant stat is that it is the first time in the Six Nations that Scotland have won three matches in two consecutive seasons, beating all their rivals at least once and winning all of their home games.
Statistically it is the first time they have managed the feat since the 1995 and 1996 seasons and only the third time they have managed it, though it was a much tougher task when the championship had only five teams.
“We know a lot of work has to go in over the next 18 months. Over the next 12 months to have a better championship, and then over 18 months to have a good World Cup,” Townsend said.
“In terms of performances in games I don’t think we have produced our New Zealand performance or our Australia performance [in the Six Nations], though for 60 minutes of the England game we were right up there.
“What we have experienced in our last six months has been great for our development. We played the number one, two, three and four teams in the world and put on performances that asked them a lot of questions.”
For Greig Laidlaw, who was captain before a broken ankle meant John Barclay took over, there is no doubt that the side are on an upward curve. “We have worked on our character in both defence and attack. We have been building this over a few years now trying to win ugly,” he said as he reflected on the Italy game where his 79th-minute penalty pulled them to victory.
“We might not have come back from that a couple of years back. To be able to do that now is pleasing. Also to understand that when we are behind we can still back our skill-set and still cause teams problems.
“That is part of the evolution. That has been pushed through the leadership group. Against Italy, it was really impressive. Everybody took a couple of deep breaths, listened to the leaders. The plan was there, we stuck to it and we pulled ourselves out of a hole.”