Vindication for Gregor Townsend, Scotland's kryptonite factor, and my solution for injuries - Fraser Brown

In many ways, Scotland are kryptonite for England. Since working with Ealing Trailfinders, I’ve become more accustomed to how English teams and players are coached from youth to professional. At their best it’s excellent, but it can be highly systematic. Players are drilled in structure: where to kick, how to chase, how to pressure and regain possession. It’s all very methodical.

England have creative individuals, but as a team they aren’t built on instinct. You don’t pick George Ford at 10 and Alex Mitchell at 9 if your identity is pure improvisation. The system has delivered success, yet when forced to chase games or break down fast-thinking opponents, England can struggle to solve problems.

So from a Scottish perspective, the two teams are just perfectly matched.

At 17-0 up after 15 minutes at Murrayfield, the game felt done. Only a familiar Scottish collapse might have rescued England, and that never came.

Sticking with the same backline was justified

It was a superb performance and vindication for Gregor Townsend after criticism following the Italy defeat and his Calcutta Cup team selection. The Italy display was poor, but the conditions were dreadful and those players didn’t suddenly become bad overnight. Sticking with the same backline was justified; the changes made up front were the right ones.

Having said all that, I don't know if being pretty terrible one week and then raising our game and putting in one of the all-time great performances against England seven days later is the type of vindication he is looking for.

But it was a magnificent victory and when you consider the context and history of the Scotland-England fixture, it’s crazy to portray Gregor’s brilliant record in the Calcutta Cup as a negative.

The criticism levelled at Gregor and the team is, ‘why can't they do that every single week?’ But it's certainly not a negative that Scotland perform so well against England. It’s not simply emotional lift; they are tactically suited to unsettle England.

Against other teams, Scotland have also had huge moments but they haven’t been able to live physically with the likes of South Africa, New Zealand, France or Ireland for 80 minutes.

The autumn loss to New Zealand was especially frustrating because stylistically they’re similar: not overwhelmingly powerful, but highly skilled.

As a national coach, you're at the mercy of whatever players are coming through and Gregor has been fortunate to be coaching at a time when Finn Russell has been Scotland’s fulcrum. He also has brilliantly creative players such as Sione Tuipulotu at 12 and Huw Jones at 13 and then there are the likes of Blair Kinghorn and Darcy Graham, and now Jamie Dobie and Kyle Steyn.

But Gregor gets the best out of them because he has that creative mindset. The way he sees the game is very instinctive. He was creative as a player and he’s creative as a coach. He wants his teams to play at pace and with width and get the best out of Finn. Scotland were very smart at the weekend.

But it’s important to note that Gregor is also very meticulous. Scotland are very structured off set plays. I think he's probably more structured as a coach than he was as a player.

Finn has really matured as an international 10

Against England’s blitz, Scotland stretched the field, moving the ball from touchline to touchline. At times they went 20 metres backwards to find space. Where teams once tried to punch through a blitz, Townsend and Russell are comfortable going around it.

Finn has really matured as an international 10 and is one of the best playmakers in the world. He understands the ebb and flow of the game and the control that comes from Ben White at scrum-half really helps.

Of course, Scotland have to back up their brilliant performance by doing it against Wales in Cardiff this Saturday.

I watched the Wales-France game and I struggle to see what Wales’s identity is. Defensively, I thought they were very, very narrow. They gave one of the best attacking teams in the world 20 metres of space on the edges. Every single time France had the ball in hand they got around Wales.

I don't know if Wales thought they needed to be compact in the middle to try and stop France’s offloads and power game, but the French nullified that by simply taking advantage of the space out wide.

In attack, Wales played a lot of phases in the middle part of the pitch, but they didn't really seem to have any shape.

At the start of the Six Nations there were questions about whether Wales were going to be an all-out attack team to try and score a lot of points and give the crowd something to cheer, or whether they were going to go back to Steve Tandy's DNA and be really compact defensively. I think they're doing neither at the minute.

How Scotland will cope without injured trio

The biggest positive from a Welsh point of view was their set-piece. Their lineout functioned well and their scrum was very strong, which will maybe be a worry for Scotland. Outside of that, I really struggle to see what they're trying to develop. I think Tandy said that himself after the game. They're really struggling and it looks like a long journey.

Scotland are going to be without three key players through injury, with Jack Dempsey, Jamie Ritchie and Jamie Dobie all ruled out.

It's a shame because all are big players. I thought Dobie was excellent at the weekend, and so too was Kyle Steyn on the other wing. Jamie will be a big loss, but there's lots of talent waiting in the wings. You've got Duhan van der Merwe and Darcy Graham, Scotland's two top try-scorers. You've also got Kyle Rowe, who is excellent under the high ball, and Blair Kinghorn, who played for Toulouse on Sunday night. So there are options in the back three.

Losing two from three of the starting back row is a blow. I thought Jamie Ritchie was excellent against England. I saw someone during the week tweet something along the lines of ‘Ritchie would do his usual and turn into peak Richie McCaw just in time to play against England’, and that’s exactly what he was like. He was excellent.

Unfortunately, he injured his knee and Dempsey injured his bicep but Scotland have some good back-row strength in depth.

Matt Fagerson did really well off the bench and I'm sure he will come straight back in as a starter.

They've got decent options and Josh Bayliss might be Gregor's style of player for Wales. Gregor Brown could also go into the back row, moving from four to six, with Matt Fagerson at eight. That could mean Max Williamson or Grant Gilchrist starting alongside Scott Cummings in the second row and I'd be inclined to give Max a start.

Fortunately for Scotland, the injuries are actually in positions where there's a decent amount of cover so they can go to Cardiff in good fettle.

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