Six Nations: Wake-up call rather than dream start but Scotland get job done against Italy

Blair Kinghorn celebrates his third try. Picture: SNS Group

The line out of the Scotland camp, predictably, was a positive one after this bonus-point win ticked off the most important boxes from a generous opening-day fixture which turned out to be even more bountiful when the extent of Italy’s injury and illness problems emerged.

The late consolation of three  Italian tries was viewed through the prism of being down to 14 men after Simon Berghan’s sin-binning, the game being in the bag, and lapses that were, in fact, a positive rather than a negative as they acted as a wake-up call to be addressed this week in  preparation for the visit of Ireland. Well, they better be.

The closing stages of Saturday’s game were a bit like a strange reverse flashback to the horror of 2007, which may still have Frank Hadden waking in the dead of night in a cold sweat. The calming difference on this occasion being that it was the closing minutes not the opening six and Scotland already had 33 points on the board to play with.

And that is where the optimism comes in. As has been the case throughout his tenure, when Gregor Townsend’s Scotland are good, boy they are good.

The five tries scored were of unimpeachable quality, the individual precocity of the magnificent Finn Russell being the artistic genesis as Blair Kinghorn bagged a first Scottish Six Nations hat-trick, Stuart Hogg went fourth equal on the Scotland try scorers list with his 19th and Chris Harris earned a much sweeter tasting post-match beer than he was served 12 months ago in Cardiff. There was also a truly cap-doffing and punchy debut from inside centre Sam Johnson that was a joy to watch.

And yet, a match that on reflection should really have been a 40-50 point stroll wasn’t. Taking out the late 14-man brain fade, there were earlier clear try-scoring opportunities squandered by the home team, some sloppiness and a very strange second-quarter lull in which nothing much seemed to happen.

Townsend, fairly, pointed to a series of re-set scrums – worth the ticket price alone, as always – as contributing to that. He also said he made it clear at half-time that it was up to his troops to be proactive and create energy rather than be sapped by the torpor. And that they duly did after the restart, with a flourish.

It was more than enough to win the game but what came next was enough to focus minds on the visit of wounded Ireland on Saturday.

Pessimists are never disappointed, optimists frequently are. C’est la vie. Townsend, in his playing and coaching career, certainly comes into the second category and, when asked about what needs to improve for the weekend, was frank.

“Probably everything,” he said with candour.

“This was our first game for a couple of months so there are some little tweaks that we had in our attack shape that we managed to put in place. We will see if we are going to follow them through for next week.

“But Ireland will test us in every area. They have an excellent set-piece, with their scrum, their lineout maul, they do special plays which seem to work out where a defence might be vulnerable on first, second, third, fourth phase so we need to be really switched on defensively.

“They are the best team in the world in contact, in terms of recycling ball, they’ve developed a real line speed and aggression in their defence and they still compete for ball. They are the complete package so we know we will have to be at our very best.”

The glass half-full Townsend added: “We’ll take confidence from parts of today and from how we played against them [Ireland] in Dublin [last year]. The first 40 minutes then we executed things really well and, up to a point, we defended very well.

“At 7-3 down in the 39th minute we had a couple of opportunities to score tries and didn’t take them and they scored off one of our intercepts. It showed how much we were in the game. They are a better team than that now, they have improved since then, so we have got to show that we have improved and we’re capable of taking our chances this time.”

The old mantra of don’t change a winning team is perhaps not applicable this week. Injury ins and outs aside, Townsend and his coaching team know full well that Ireland pose a completely different challenge to the one they just faced.

“When the team plays well there’s cohesion of backing the team that has gone out there, players that have played very well for Scotland in the past, that have played these big games, that brings something to the group,” said Townsend.

“There is a specific game we have to put in place for this week to negate Ireland’s strengths and put them under as much pressure as possible. So there will be an open selection. Players that are putting their hands up now, we’ll have more players to pick from and we will pick the team we think we can beat Ireland with.”