Even the taxing challenge of coaching in a global pandemic has failed to dent Gregor Townsend’s appetite for knowledge. As another strange and Covid-ravaged Six Nations tournament limps towards us, Scotland’s head coach leads his team to Twickenham on Saturday to face England. His preparations, like those of every other coach, have been disrupted but Townsend stresses how much he has learned this past year.
“It’s a huge amount,” he says of the fresh ideas he has accumulated. “We’ve had to coach differently in different situations. Instead of being in small team rooms we’ve been talking in big lecture theatres, doing coaching sessions on Zoom, speaking to players with masks on. But the time we’ve had at home meant that the amount of learning we could do was unprecedented. The chance to learn from others around the world was a huge bonus.
“After the first few weeks of reviewing Six Nations games on Zoom, our analyst said: ‘How about a Takeaway Tuesday where we open our contact books and bring someone in as a guest for us to take away some learning?’ We soon had two on a Tuesday, three on a Wednesday, one on a Friday. An early standout was Craig Bellamy [the Australian coach of Melbourne Storm, the rugby league team who won the NRL grand final last October]. We also spoke to a couple of guys from Richmond Tigers [the Australian rules football team] and swapped ideas with people in hockey – Max Caldas, the Dutch coach, and Danny Kerry, the GB coach.
“We did a Zoom session with Roberto Martínez and Shaun Maloney, who coach Belgium’s football team, and spoke to many others. The more we listened the more clear it became that building relationships and wellbeing were key factors in their success. So we formed a spin-off group and spoke to psychologists and it was really educational.”
Townsend admits coaching in these distressing times has also been draining and surreal. “Coaching on Zoom is pretty bizarre,” he says. “On one session there were 109 players on the call but it still feels as if you are presenting to nobody because you don’t see their faces. But we got beyond the bizarre elements and put small groups together and gave them projects to look at – whether kicking, working with players in your position or projects for decision-makers. Before that it was complicated because we would have said we’ll meet in Glasgow or Edinburgh or fly to wherever you’re based. Now we could get five people on a call and share ideas easily.”
He now has his Scotland squad in camp as they look forward to Saturday’s game. But Covid safety protocols mean there is the added complexity of reading the mood of players beneath their masks. “Team meetings now take place in massive lecture theatres. At first I didn’t like it because I felt we weren’t getting that close proximity of 35 people. But the quality of your analysis tends to be so much better and the players like the massive screens. It feels like you’re in a NFL team room. So there are pros and cons but uncertainty is the biggest challenge – not knowing if the tournament is going ahead, when we’ll get our players or how many games they’ve played. But in camp it becomes clearer and a more traditional way of how we beat England.”
The last time Scotland played a Six Nations match at Twickenham, in 2019, they trailed 31-0 after 29 minutes. But then, in an astonishing turnaround, Townsend’s players scored six tries without reply. Scotland led 38-31 until the 83rd minute when George Ford converted his own try. A 38-38 draw at Twickenham, where Scotland last beat England in 1983, almost felt like another defeat.
“It was the most unbelievable game I’ve been involved in,” says Townsend, who won 82 caps for Scotland. “We were really poor in the first 30 minutes and England were very good. But we had two moments at the end of the first half that gave some confidence. One was Stuart McInally’s charge-down and run for a try. Another one was a defensive set before half-time. England had the ball but we not only held the line but pushed them back. We still went in 31-7 down at half-time.”
What did he say to his battered team? “There was no Churchill speech. I remember going down to the changing room and I was still pretty angry but I didn’t say much when I got in. The forwards coach got together with the pack and I said we had the goal to leave with respect. We just talked about winning the second half.”
Townsend shakes his head at the memory of the next 40 minutes. “The second half shows you the wonder of sport and also the confidence that can go from one team to another very quickly. We scored a try soon after half-time and another straight after. Suddenly we were the team desperate to get the ball and try things. We were very accurate, taking every opportunity, and England went from being really confident to being nervous and not playing. Of course it would have been even better if we’d hung on to win. But it’s now a reference point so we can say to our players: ‘Look, we can score 14 points in two minutes, because we did that in one of rugby’s toughest arenas. So never feel you’re beaten because we can come back from any situation.’”
Yet, in a disappointing World Cup later that year, Scotland lost against Ireland and Japan and crashed out of the tournament before the knockout stages. Townsend concedes he made mistakes. “The Ireland game was our biggest disappointment and I got it wrong with where we were emotionally and mentally. It was a massive opportunity for us but I got them psychologically geared up too much. We ended up conceding three early tries.
“It wasn’t down to what we’d done in the three months leading up to it. It was down to two days before the game. We’d been stuck in traffic and it took us two hours to come back from our training venue. So we made a decision to travel to the game on a train rather than a bus. It seems trivial now but it was a mistake. For 10 days we’d trained outstandingly but the change of routine affected us. There was too much emotion before our biggest game in the World Cup and it led to us not playing anywhere near the level we’d trained at or played in the warm-up fixture. It was a big lesson for me.”
The Scottish Rugby Union retained its faith in Townsend and two months ago he extended his contract until the 2023 World Cup. He believes in his players and it helps that the sometimes prickly relationship between him and Finn Russell, his gifted No 10, has apparently been resolved. Were some of the reported difficulties between him and Russell overblown by the media? “I probably won’t answer that,” Townsend replies but he nods empathically when I ask if he and Russell are now working well together. “Yes. It was disappointing for Finn and for us that he picked up his injury in November because it was great to have him back in the squad. We talk a lot about life but also about where the game is going and he’s one of the players changing the way the game is played by the way he reads defences. He’s an outstanding player who has a lot more to bring and achieve. We’re looking forward to working with him again.”
Russell plays his club rugby in France while Stuart Hogg and Jonny Gray are at Exeter Chiefs. Are three of Scotland’s best players benefiting from playing outside the country? “This is a hard one for me to answer. For the national team, the more players we have in Scotland the better. Individual players have their own reasons for where they play. If it’s driven by them looking to be the best player they can be, which I believe it is, it’s going to help them as individuals and us as a team. I played a lot of my rugby outside Scotland so I know how much these experiences can develop you as a person and a player. But it offers challenges for cohesion and making sure they’re not overplaying. That’s tough for the national team and I’d hope there’s always going to be a strong majority playing in Scotland for two really good professional teams in Glasgow and Edinburgh.”
Rugby has not been a sparkling spectacle recently and many international coaches stress that kicking wins matches. “The stats say that and I know you spoke with Eddie Jones a lot, so he’ll also say that. It’s been a constant since before the World Cup. But it doesn’t tell the whole picture. It doesn’t say what types of kicks matter. Kicking can now be an attacking weapon and a way to impose your game. But if you go into games thinking all we need to do is kick, you’re going nowhere and it’s not good for the game. If everybody follows the same model there are huge opportunities to exploit [the predictability]. You just need to seize these opportunities and then the lawmakers have to tweak the game to make sure everybody wants to watch.”
An hour-long conversation with Townsend is fascinating – just as it always had been whenever I interviewed him when he was such an interesting No 10. Townsend laughs after I ask him to revisit his Twickenham debut in 1993 as a 19-year-old substitute. “If I’d been taken off after my first 10 minutes I’d have never played for Scotland again. Back in those days you never came off the bench unless there was an injury so all the subs said: ‘We won’t bother warming up today, will we? These guys are never leaving Twickenham.’”
When Craig Chalmers broke his arm in the first half a stunned Townsend was sent on. He was hit by waves of nerves which meant: “My first 10 minutes were a complete blank. I high-tackled Will Carling and Martin Bayfield ran over the top of me. For 10 minutes I just wasn’t there. But after that I absolutely loved it and in the second half I thought: ‘This is where I want to be.’”
Townsend sounds just as certain that coaching Scotland is where he wants to remain. “We have to keep growing belief but, over the last year, we’ve built a team that is much tougher to beat. We’ve got some real leaders and a group with lots of Test match experience. Over the next five games we’ve got to put in our best performances because we will be tested. There is no bigger test than going to Twickenham. So that’s what we are working towards despite all the restrictions – going out and playing our best rugby against England.”
