Townsend backs players to thrive in Twickenham heat

GREGOR TOWNSEND believes his Scotland team have the character and mentality to thrive in the Twickenham cauldron next weekend — and get their

Six Nations campaign off to a flying start.

The Scots will be going for three wins in a row over England in front of a capacity crowd in London next Saturday.

The previous match at the home of English rugby two years ago, played behind closed doors due to lockdown, resulted in Scotland’s first win at the home of English rugby for 38 years.

And Townsend believes dealing with the ‘chaos and intensity’ of the powderkeg fixture will be key against Steve Borthwick’s men.

‘How England play and how we play will probably be a factor in whether the atmosphere stays as raucous for the 80 minutes, but even if it is noisy and intimidating, then we’ve got to just keep our control and thrive on the two things,’ said Townsend (right).

‘There’s also the physical chaos and intensity of Test matches that you prepare yourself for and you’ve got to thrive in that arena. Same with the noise. If we all want to be the team that we believe we can be, then it is just another thing that we’ve got to take on.’

The Scotland head coach knows his team will be facing an England side full of players desperate to impress new head coach Borthwick and accepts the Calcutta Cup clash — as well as the home game against Wales the following week — can make or break his side’s championship chances.

‘Momentum breeds confidence and belief, and obviously if we win our first two games against England and Wales we’ve got more chance of winning the tournament because we’ve got the points on the board,’ said

Townsend. ‘As to how England will play, we will have to just wait and see. If you were a betting man, you would say it will be similar to how Leicester played under Steve and Kevin Sinfield. They’re the head coach and defence coach and they’ve got big roles in the team but there’s no game that we can show to the players because this is their first in charge. ‘We’ve just got to adapt to whatever they throw at us. Our feeling is they won’t be too expansive early on. It’s the first game, Leicester have a big kick-chase pressure philosophy, so if that’s what they bring we’ve got to make sure that we deal with it but also put our game in place.’

Townsend believes his side go into the Six Nations full of confidence but knows the opposition, especially England who have a new coach in Borthwick and Wales, who have appointed Warren Gatland to replace Wayne Pivac, will be tougher to beat than ever.

‘What I would say is the opposition has improved a huge amount,’ he said. ‘Back in the 1990s, maybe one or two teams were playing well and in the top five or six in the world. Now we’ve got two teams that are leading world rugby.

‘Every team has improved in the north over the last ten years, so even though we’ve improved and we’ve had some big results against northern-hemisphere and also southern-hemisphere opposition, the Six Nations is at a higher level than ever.

‘Going into the tournament we have to learn how to build on wins. The big frustration was two years ago, where we were 17-3 up against Wales after beating England in the first round and we didn’t see that victory out. That could have given us an opportunity to win the title that year.

‘You also need a bit of luck, and luck could be the injuries that you suffer Obviously, we have to play well to have a chance.’