Gregor Townsend is adamant that Scotland’s present kind is of way more relevance than their grim document in opposition to Ireland as the 2 groups put together to lock horns in Sunday’s high-stakes Guinness Six Nations showdown.
The Scots have didn’t win any of their final seven matches in opposition to the Irish and have gained solely as soon as within the final 12 conferences.
Townsend is of no thoughts to permit his group to be burdened by discuss of their previous document in opposition to this weekend’s opponents, as he believes their enchancment since they final confronted the Irish in Dublin a 12 months in the past is extra important with regard to Sunday’s match.
“What’s more important is what we’re doing just now and what we’ve learned since the summer, since last year’s Six Nations when obviously one of those games was against Ireland,” he mentioned.
What’s extra vital is what we’re doing simply now and what we have discovered for the reason that summer season
Gregor Townsend
“What we’ve put in place since then is more important than how we’ve played against Ireland in the past. We will look at Ireland and what they’ve done in their past few games, stretching back to the New Zealand Tests.
“You do look back at games you play against them but we know what they are about. They are very well coached, the contact area is massive for them.
“They go through a lot of phases and can stretch the opposition and they have an attack shape driven by Jonny Sexton which is all set up to find a weakness, so we have to be together and alive in defence.”
Townsend admits it’s uncommon to see a Six Nations contestant arrive at BT Murrayfield with such a formidable aura however he’s braced for the problem.
“There have been other teams that have been dominant that have come here, such as New Zealand over the years,” he mentioned. “It is maybe different to see it from a Six Nations team but that is the strength of European rugby just now, we have the number one and number two teams in the world in our competition.
“They have got a lot of things that lead to success at Test level, first of all cohesion. They know each other really well, a lot of them play for the same club and they all play in the same country.
“They have been together now for a few years and have built success through Joe Schmidt, and Andy Farrell has evolved their game as well which has led to even more success from them.
“They know what works for them. They have a full deck of cards this week with their players coming back and they will take confidence from that.”
