Win over England an indictment, not an endorsement of Gregor Townsend

Scotland’s rousing 31-20 Calcutta Cup win at Murrayfield, which unceremoniously ended England’s 12-game winning streak, in some eyes will have been a moment of vindication for Gregor Townsend, but for others, it has raised more questions than answers.

So often capable of pulling off a rousing Groundhog Day win over England in the Six Nations, the question is why they were so poor against Italy last week, and once again, can they back it up against Wales in Cardiff?

Irish television pundits, while impressed by the Scots’ display, took Scottish management to task over the sheer level of inconsistency displayed by Townsend’s side over the years, with this Six Nations being no different.

Former Ireland full-back Rob Kearney was frustrated by Scotland, even in victory.

“I still kind of believe it a little bit [that a win is an indictment of Gregor Townsend’s coaching], that I don’t know how a team can be so inconsistent so often over the course of five or six weeks in a Six Nations,” said Kearney on Virgin Media. “They do it time and time again. They’re such a frustrating team because they’ll produce a performance like that tonight, and they were really good.

“They came out of the blocks well, they had a good game plan, they played expansively, that sort of Scottish attacking rugby we know they can produce.

“They were better at set-piece than they were last week and defensively they were strong.

“They tick a lot of boxes of a really good performance, but then you contrast it with what they did last week and you’re thinking this is two completely different teams. So you ask yourself, how do we get two completely different teams? I think that’s when, at times, you have to look at coaches and management.”

Peter O’Mahony echoed the same point. “They’re fabulous athletes when you look at their team sheet, but he’s right, where is their consistency?

“How can they go from last week to this? How can they figure out how to perform like that week in, week out? Because that performance would stand up to any team in the world. It was physical, there was great direction to it, expansive when they needed to be, really good in the tight.

“But how do they figure out how to get that performance in eight or nine games out of 10? That’s the challenge for Scotland.”

Kearney also questioned how good Steve Borthwick’s England are, now their winning streak lies in tatters.

“Yeah, it would make you rethink how good England are. It’s the first time they’ve been properly tested during that run. They’ve gone 12 from 12 and that’s the stat that’s been thrown around, but they haven’t had to play a huge amount of big games away from home. They were in Argentina during the summer and did well, then they were back here in November.

“They looked off. England play a very efficient game plan, you could argue sometimes it’s a little bit boring. It’s a long time since they’ve been 18-nil down after 20 minutes.

“All of a sudden their whole game plan changes because they’re chasing the game, and they’re not particularly good at that. They’re very good at scoreboard pressure, playing territory, putting the opposition down there, picking up a couple of scores and then all of a sudden George Ford has kicked them nine or 12 points into the lead.

“I think that was something they didn’t anticipate having to do.”