{"id":536173,"date":"2026-03-12T19:35:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T19:35:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/536173\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T19:35:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T19:35:11","slug":"townsend-plays-down-talk-of-historic-first-six-nations-title-for-scotland-scotland-rugby-union-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/536173\/","title":{"rendered":"Townsend plays down talk of historic first Six Nations title for Scotland | Scotland rugby union team"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gregor Townsend refused to indulge in talk of a first Six Nations<\/a> title for Scotland as he outlined the scale of the task still facing his side in their quest to make history.<\/p>\n

The Scots go into Super Saturday as one of three teams in the mix for the championship, alongside table-topping France and opponents Ireland. In short, Scotland must collect more match points in Dublin in the first game of the day than Les Bleus manage against England in the late kick-off in Paris. If both lose, Ireland could also win the title.<\/p>\n

Asked if he had allowed himself to ponder leading the Scots to a first title of the Six Nations era, head coach Townsend said: \u201cNo. It\u2019s out of our hands really. We can only do a certain amount. It\u2019s a game for us to play against an opponent that\u2019s had the upper hand on us for years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re playing them away from home. They\u2019ve got a brilliant record at home. It\u2019s a challenge but a real opportunity for us to go and deliver an even better performance than we did last week. It would be great to finish the championship with a win and finish on a high. That will obviously carry on the momentum and if that means we win the game, we obviously know there\u2019s something at stake.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Scotland squad flew out to Ireland on Thursday afternoon buoyed by a run of three consecutive victories against England, Wales and France, with their 50-40 triumph over <\/a>Les Bleus<\/a> last Saturday particularly inspiring.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat performance was close to the best that we\u2019ve seen from this group and from probably any Scotland team,\u201d said Townsend. \u201cIt\u2019ll be a different game than last week so you\u2019ve got to adapt, stick together for that 80 minutes and give it everything because it\u2019s going to be your last opportunity in this year\u2019s Six Nations and last opportunity as a team for a few months.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scotland have lost their past 11 meetings with Ireland, with their last win in the fixture coming nine years ago. A victory this weekend would secure a first Triple Crown for the Scots since 1990. Injuries have forced Townsend into selecting a new second row, with Max Williamson and Grant Gilchrist replacing Gregor Brown and Scott Cummings, while Zander Fagerson starts at tighthead prop, having been a replacement against France.<\/p>\n

Quick GuideSix Nations teamsShow<\/p>\n

Ireland J Osborne; R Baloucoune, G Ringrose, S McCloskey, T O\u2019Brien; J Crowley, J Gibson-Park; T O\u2019Toole, D Sheehan, T Furlong, J McCarthy, T Beirne, J Conan, J van der Flier, C Doris (capt).<\/p>\n

Replacements R Kelleher, M Milne, F Bealham, D Murray, N Timoney, C Casey, C Frawley, B Aki.<\/p>\n

Scotland\u00a0B Kinghorn; D Graham, H Jones, S Tuipulotu (capt), K Steyn; F Russell, B White; P Schoeman, G Turner, Z Fagerson, M Williamson, G Gilchrist, M Fagerson, R Darge, J Dempsey.<\/p>\n

Replacements E Ashman, R Sutherland, D Rae, A Craig, M Bradbury, G Horne, K Rowe, T Jordan.<\/p>\n

———-<\/p>\n

Wales (to face Italy) L Rees-Zammit; E Mee, E James, J Hawkins, J Adams; D Edwards, T Williams; R Carr\u00e9, D Lake (capt), T Francis, D Jenkins, B Carter, A Mann, J Botham, A Wainwright.<\/p>\n

Replacements R Elias, N Smith, A Griffin, A Beard, O Cracknell, K Hardy, J Evans, B Murray.<\/p>\n

Thank you for your feedback.<\/p>\n

\u201cIreland seem to play very well against us so that\u2019s what we\u2019re expecting,\u201d Townsend said. \u201cTheir performance against England was one of the standout performances of this year\u2019s championship and if they deliver that, which we\u2019re expecting them to do, we\u2019re going to have to be very, very good to win.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andy Farrell has made four changes to his Ireland starting XV with hooker Dan Sheehan, lock Joe McCarthy and openside flanker Josh van der Flier returning to the forward pack. Ronan Kelleher and Nick Timoney drop to the bench and James Ryan is ruled out by a calf injury.<\/p>\n

Tommy O\u2019Brien is preferred to Jacob Stockdale on the left wing in the sole alteration among the backs after last Friday\u2019s 27-17 bonus-point win over Wales<\/a>. Centre Bundee Aki, who was suspended for the opening three rounds, is a replacement and poised to make his first appearance of the tournament.<\/p>\n

In Cardiff on Saturday, Wales will be looking to avoid a third consecutive Six Nations whitewash when they host Italy. Italy were the last team to lose a Six Nations game to Wales<\/a> on 11 March 2023 and supporters are desperate to see their worst-ever run in the tournament ended.<\/p>\n

However, when asked at his pre-match press conference if performance or result was more important, head coach Steve Tandy said: \u201cI think performance. If we get the performance, the result will follow. I want both, if I\u2019m honest, but I think the performance will get us closer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t control the outcome. You see in games the bounce of the ball might not always go your way, but what we have to be is consistent. You can get a win but actually are you still growing? They should go hand in hand. We want to produce a performance that replicates what we did over the last few weeks but also makes it better.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gregor Townsend refused to indulge in talk of a first Six Nations title for Scotland as he outlined…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536174,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-536173","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\/536173","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=536173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536173\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}