Hastings opens up options for Townsend
IF YOU were to ask two different Scotland fans for their assessment of the tour of the Americas, you would be forgiven if you thought they hadn't seen any of the same matches.
For some, the tour was viewed as a chance to rest major stars after a gruelling year. Others felt that they should have been taking their strongest possible squad to one of the southern hemisphere powerhouses. In some cases, fans criticised the number of long-haul flights in the schedule. One gets the impression Georgia would have been all too happy to host Townsend's men if they were looking for something less exotic.
Townsend has been at the helm long enough to know that such criticisms are inevitable and he likely pays them no heed. He certainly won't be quick out the blocks to address any of these issues and he shouldn't have to. After all, history may well look back on this tour very fondly, even if it failed to produce the kind of emotional highs witnessed elsewhere last month.
First and foremost, the tour provided Townsend with the commodity prized above all by international coaches: time. Scotland's four matches were more than any of the other home nations and will have offered their head coach invaluable opportunities to assess his squad, 10 of whom were uncapped when they headed to Canada five weeks ago.
Some of those will have impressed the coaches enough to keep their place come the autumn. How many would have had the chance if Scotland had faced the likes of New Zealand or South Africa in July?
In the first tour of a new World Cup cycle, Townsend was also able to experiment in key positions – a luxury that Andy Farrell, Warren Gatland, and Steve Borthwick were not afforded.
Finn Russell's qualities are unquestioned but there is now far greater clarity around Scotland's second choice fly-half. Townsend rotated three different 10s across the four matches, with Ben Healy finally getting a chance to show his qualities in back-to-back starts. It was Adam Hastings, however, who came out of the tour in the ascendency after assured displays from the bench against Chile and Uruguay.
There were also questions about Scotland's depth at hooker after George Turner effectively ruled himself out of international contention for the foreseeable future after leaving for Japan. Ewan Ashman has shown himself to be an able understudy but this was his chance to prove himself as a frontline international. New cap Patrick Harrison also got a chance to shine late in the tour and scored an important try in the final game against Uruguay.
As for the argument that one can't draw any meaningful conclusions about the aforementioned players because of the level of opposition, it is worth rewatching some of the matches. Granted, the Canada game was not competitive but against the USA Scotland had to contend with brutal conditions that will have tested their conditioning and, more importantly, their execution under fatigue. Chile were leading after 20 minutes and only succumbed late in the second half. Uruguay could well have beaten Scotland last weekend had their fly-half, Felipe Etcheverry, kicked the points on offer.
Instead, Scotland prevailed 31-19 with Duhan van der Merwe scoring his 28th try for his adopted nation to become the record try scorer after only 41 games.
There would have been no mercy from pundits or fans had Scotland faltered in any of their games. That is the price of being an elite team. The other side of that transaction ought to be that elite teams get credit when they don't slip up, especially against teams fighting tooth and nail for the right to be taken seriously.
After all, while it may not have seemed so in Scotland, there was a huge amount riding on this tour in the Americas. The 2031 World Cup in America, long viewed as a potential silver bullet for the sport's financial woes, cannot be expected to succeed if the entire western hemisphere is routinely denied access to top-level rugby. There is an appetite for the sport on these shores, but it cannot thrive in isolation. A record 25,000 fans attended Chile's game against Scotland and the entire tour received significant press attention throughout the continent.
‘Growing the game' is one of those often repeated and largely nebulous aims that fans generally agree to be a good thing, so long as their team doesn't have to sacrifice anything to achieve it. No Scotland fan would accept their side losing ground on their rivals just to help promote the sport elsewhere. Thankfully, and as this tour will go on to show, it does not have to be one or the other.
