{"id":468078,"date":"2026-02-09T07:36:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T07:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/468078\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T07:36:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T07:36:08","slug":"six-nations-2026-five-talking-points-from-the-opening-round","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/468078\/","title":{"rendered":"Six Nations 2026: Five talking points from the opening round"},"content":{"rendered":"

That England visit comes at a crucial time for Scotland and their coach Gregor Townsend.<\/p>\n

He came into the tournament courted by Newcastle Red Bulls and with question marks over his commitment to the cause.<\/a><\/p>\n

A tame display in some horrendous weather in Rome as Italy picked up a famous 18-15 win<\/a> has left some calling for a change.<\/p>\n

Former Scotland forward John Barclay told Rugby Special: “I thought before the Six Nations that Scotland had to finish third or above.<\/p>\n

“If they don’t, which is now going to be very hard, I think it becomes a necessity to see a change.<\/p>\n

“It’s a good group of players and if you are not seeing an improvement there is an option for change. That might be the best thing for Gregor and for Scotland.”<\/p>\n

The conditions made the going tough, but it was Scotland’s heart, not hands, that were questioned.<\/p>\n

“Italy were more aggressive and that’s down to desire, not the rain,” former Scotland and British and Irish Lions prop Peter Wright told BBC Scotland.<\/p>\n

“Townsend is an experienced coach and should have known they couldn’t play the rugby they wanted to play in those conditions. Scotland lost the war in the set-pieces.”<\/p>\n

The defeat was a fifth away loss in a row in the Six Nations for Scotland and their beleaguered coach.<\/p>\n

Before the match, Townsend – who is contracted as head coach until the end of the 2027 World Cup – dismissed a report that he has agreed to take over at Newcastle Red Bulls after the World Cup as “pure speculation”.<\/p>\n

More displays like this may make that contract end date a moot point. Scotland need to dig deep and find another level of performance against England.<\/p>\n

Expect recalls for Duhan van der Merwe and Darcy Graham to provide energy and – Scotland will hope – ammunition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"That England visit comes at a crucial time for Scotland and their coach Gregor Townsend. He came into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":468079,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-468078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/468079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}