Gregor Townsend sets a target of 20 points to win Tucuman Test

Published on Wednesday 9 June 2010 23:26

IF SCOTLAND are to have any chance of winning the first Test in Tucuman on Saturday they will need to score a minimum of 20 points. At least that is the belief of Gregor Townsend and the Scotland attack coach is paid to know these sorts of things.

If the figure seems a little arbitrary, and it almost certainly is, on closer inspection it just about fits the bill. Two years ago Scotland scored 15 points in Rosario and lost the opening Test. One week later they scored 26 points in Buenos Aires and levelled the series. It's no magic number but 20 points is a handy enough target and it is a lot easier to reach with a try or two nudging the score board along. Unfortunately tries are proving desperately difficult to come by right now.

While Townsend was one of the most gloriously unpredictable players of his generation the back line he coaches is a little pedestrian, managing just two touchdowns in the last eight Test matches. Townsend admitted that the number of tries scored by the piano shifters, as opposed to the piano players, has become a talking point.

"In my role as attack coach I like to see anyone scoring tries," said the former fly-half after the team trained in Buenos Aires yesterday. "It's funny because Robbo (Scotland head coach Andy Robinson] was having a go on the bus about forwards scoring more tries than the backs but that's a coincidence. We'd all like to score more tries, the key is scoring more points than the opposition and defences are tougher to break down.

"The Argentina game (at Murrayfield last autumn which the tourists won 9-6] is a very good example. We put a very good defence under pressure, a team that doesn't give up many tries, but we didn't finish off two clear chances we had, one of them a two-on-one five metres from the line. We know against teams like Argentina and the top six teams in the world you have to get to 20 points to win games. We did that against Ireland but didn't manage it against England."

One rumour doing the rounds yesterday was that Rory Lawson was starting at scrum-half in Tucuman and, if it turns out to be true, it is surely his service that has helped him leapfrog Mike Blair at No9.

Lawson's service is probably the best of the trio of Scots scrum-halves here in Argentina and that speed of pass should give the outside backs that crucial extra half second to act.

"Argentina have a very good defence, very compact, well organised, a great scramble defence as well," said Townsend, continuing to talk up Saturday's opposition. "I was pleased by the counter-attack against Argentina (last November] and against England. An area that we have focused on, and where we know that we need to improve, is what we do when we get into the opposition 22. It's very hard to score clean off a break because scramble defences are so good, so we have to work hard to get our best runners and passers into position, and then back our skills in those positions."

Townsend admitted that the dreaded white line fever has afflicted some players at key moments. "When you see the line is there and you can push someone over then most players tend to go for it, whereas if there is try with two passes then you have to trust your skills in those areas. In that Italy game we could have come away with two or three tries if we'd just moved the ball one pass."

Townsend also spoke of players' inability to "scan" by which he means that the Scots do not always look for support when they take the ball into contact but that is just one criticism. There is a lack of what the older generation of pundits used to call "good footballers", a shortage of natural ball players. Considering the number of Scottish backs that were brought up outside of the Scottish system – Dan Parks, Simon Danielli, both Evans and Lamont brothers and Hugo Southwell – it seems that Scottish rugby, or perhaps the Scottish winter, is simply not conducive to producing the quality of player that Townsend needs to reach that 20-point mark.

He won't solve Scotland's problems in attack but prop Kyle Traynor flies into Argentina today to join the squad from Romania where he was part of the A-squad. His promotion is because Gloucester's Ally Dickinson is suffering from stomach bug. Traynor's place in Romania will be filled by his Edinburgh team mate David Young.

Argentina named their team yesterday for Saturday's first Test and have recalled Felipe Contepomi and Juan Manuel Leguizamon to the starting XV. Contepomi missed the entire 2009 international campaign due to a cruciate ligament injury in his left knee but returns to captain the side from fly-half. Leguizamon missed the autumn tour of Britain.