'It's a good question' - Townsend's downbeat admission on team's mentality

Gregor Townsend declared Scotland’s Guinness Six Nations campaign a disappointment as he lamented his team’s inability to perform to their potential.

The Scots went into the tournament with hopes of challenging for the title after pulling off a string of big victories in recent seasons.

However, they managed to win only two of their five matches – against England and Italy – as they finished fourth in the table.

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Townsend rued his team’s failure to build on their opening-weekend Calcutta Cup triumph by falling short away to Wales in the following match.

“We’re disappointed,” said the head coach, reflecting on the campaign overall. “We look at the fundamentals of our performances and our performances weren’t good enough, particularly in the Wales game.

“That the was the most disappointing aspect, that we had an opportunity going down to Wales but we weren’t accurate enough. Following that, we had some very good moments against France but they were the better team on the day.

“Likewise against Ireland. Italy was a good bounce-back but we just couldn’t get the wins either side of it.”

Despite having some promising moments against Ireland in Dublin on Saturday, Scotland were ultimately defeated 26-5.

Asked if he believes his team possesses the mentality to compete for championships, Townsend said: “It’s a good question. We’ll have to see.

“We’ll get a real challenge in the summer when we go away from home to Argentina and then we’ve got some outstanding teams coming to visit us in November and those are ultimately the ways we prepare to be more competitive in the next Six Nations.

“It’s such a strong tournament now. France have won every game they’ve played this season and Ireland have won every game apart from the game in Paris so there are two of the best teams in the world in our competition, never mind England, Wales and Italy.

“We have to be better to be competitive. We have to go in with the same mindset, ambition and expectations that we’ve had this year, last year and the year before in terms of going into tournaments believing in our group and believing we can be a match for anybody.

“But we weren’t good enough this year, that’s obvious. We’ll have to learn from that, build towards the summer and then build towards November.”