{"id":417227,"date":"2026-02-10T02:49:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T02:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/417227\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T02:49:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T02:49:09","slug":"townsend-savaged-by-rugby-legend-over-scotland-six-nations-circus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/417227\/","title":{"rendered":"Townsend savaged by rugby legend over Scotland Six Nations ‘circus’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n The Scotland boss faced questions over whether he had been lined up to take the Newcastle job after the 2027 World Cup before the tournament even began.\n<\/p>\n

\n Then, Scotland fell to defeat on the opening day in a disappointing loss to Italy<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

\n For Woodward, who won the Rugby World Cup with England<\/a>, for Scotland to have had any chance at success on the field then matters had to be sorted off of it.\n<\/p>\n

\n In his Daily Mail<\/a> column, Woodward blasted Townsend, something he likes as a player and coach, for “shooting himself in the foot” as he insisted both the coach and SRU chiefs have “huge questions to answer”.\n<\/p>\n

\n Woodward wrote: “I like Townsend but he is absolutely at fault here. He\u2019s been so daft.\n<\/p>\n

\n “Equally, the SRU chief executive, Alex Williamson<\/a>, and performance guru, David Nucifora<\/a>, have a pretty poor grasp of international rugby by allowing it.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n “They should have said to Townsend: \u2018If you want to work with Red Bull, go but there\u2019s no way you can do that and be Scotland coach. Make a choice.\u2019\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n “They’ve allowed Townsend to walk all over them. I am surprised at Nucifora given his experience and the fine work he did with Ireland<\/a>.\u00a0”\n<\/p>\n

\n Read more:\n<\/p>\n

\n He continued: “I wonder what the likes of\u00a0Finn Russell<\/a>\u00a0think of it. Russell and Townsend haven\u2019t always got on, so I can\u2019t imagine the No 10 is seeing anything positive about this circus.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n “I can\u2019t imagine Scotland’s is a happy camp right now.\u00a0Townsend doesn\u2019t strike me as an idiot, but he has allowed this to unfold in the glare of the media. He\u2019s been na\u00efve to think working with Red Bull and Newcastle links wouldn\u2019t have an impact on his ability to coach the team.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n “The moment I read about it, I thought it would cause Scotland problems. And it is. I would never have considered doing it.\n<\/p>\n

\n “Working with another team while coaching England? Frankly unthinkable and unworkable.”\n<\/p>\n

\n Responding to critics after the loss to Italy, Townsend said: \u201cI think\u00a0the media\u00a0can choose what narrative to write.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cWhether people think coaches are doing\u00a0a good job\u00a0and\u00a0they’re\u00a0there longer, or whether\u00a0it’s\u00a0time for change.\u00a0You guys\u00a0can choose [to write] that.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Scotland boss faced questions over whether he had been lined up to take the Newcastle job after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417228,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-417227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417227\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}