Gregor Townsend lauds rookie: 'It’s very difficult to do that in your first cap'

Gregor Townsend backed Liam McConnell for a big future in a Scotland jersey after the burgeoning Edinburgh back-rower produced an “excellent” debut display in Saturday’s 13-try, 85-0 rout of the United States at Murrayfield.

The 21-year-old flanker was pitched straight into the starting line-up after earning his maiden call-up following a strong start to the season with his club.

McConnell marked his big day with a some magnificent carries, the first of which ended with a delightful basketball pass to lay on a try for Duhan van der Merwe.

“Liam was excellent,” said head coach Townsend. “It’s very difficult to do that in your first cap. My first 10 minutes of my first cap was a nightmare, I missed tackles and I was all over the place.

“So to deliver your strengths, of which Liam has many – his work-rate, his speed, his defence, but also his attacking game, which has really came on this year – it was an excellent performance.

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“And he showed his fitness by being one of our best players in the last 10 minutes as well as the first 10 minutes.”

Townsend, whose side host New Zealand on Saturday, believes McConnell looks equipped to put pressure on Scotland’s more established back-rowers.

“He’s confirmed what we thought around his potential growth and how he can bring more than just one aspect of the game, which is now what we’re expecting of forwards,” he said.

“They’ve got to attack and defend really well and he showed his physicality, he showed the effort that he put into the performance.

“He’s put a marker down for others that may get the opportunity next week to say, ‘look, here’s someone just in his first cap delivering that performance’, but also for us we know now we’ve got someone really competing hard who should grow even more over the next year or two.”

Townsend was pleased his side were able to enjoy a rare shut-out in their first match since Lee Radford replaced Steve Tandy as defence coach.

“Obviously for his first game as an international coach with Scotland and not have too much to worry about, I think he (Radford) was delighted by the effort,” said Townsend.

“Some of the things we work on in defence are different than when Steve was in charge of that area and we saw some of that against the United States and we’ve seen it at training too.

“We’ll have another couple of training sessions next week and then we’ll have a really big test against a quality side.”

Townsend welcomes his England and France-based players, including Finn Russell, Tom Jordan, Ben White, Blair Kinghorn and Jamie Ritchie, back for next weekend’s showdown with the All Blacks after they were unable to face the United States due to the match falling outside the international window.

British and Irish Lions pair Sione Tuipulotu and Pierre Schoeman will also return to the mix after being rested on Saturday, while Townsend expects forwards Zander Fagerson, Rory Darge and Elliot Millar Mills all to be fit for selection after their recent injury issues.