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Townsend explains how relations can be mended with Hogg and co
By Liam Heagney
Scotland boss Gregor Townsend believes it will be possible to have a positive long-term relationship with the likes of Stuart Hogg – despite last weekend’s breach of team discipline by the skipper and five other players.
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The skipper Hogg, Finn Russell, Ali Price, Darcy Graham, Sam Johnson and Sione Tuipulotu all visited an Edinburgh bar last weekend without the permission of team management and the story that they were disciplined for this excursion broke on Friday afternoon, the day before Scotland played Ireland in Dublin in their closing match of the 2022 Guinness Six Nations.
Hogg, Graham, Johnson and Price were still all named in the Scotland XV to start against the Irish in the round five match, with Russell dropped to the bench and Tuipulotu, a sub in Italy, omitted from the matchday 23.
Post-game, Townsend was keen on focusing on how proud he was of his Scotland team despite their 5-26 defeat to Ireland, but the repeated line of questioning at his Saturday evening media briefing was about what had taken place last weekend after the Scots had travelled home from their round four win over Italy in Rome.
Scotland hadn’t conducted any media sessions since the controversy broke on Friday afternoon, so it was naturally the hottest post-game topic at the Aviva Stadium and after Hogg had explained that he had apologised for something that will hurt him for a long time, it was the turn of an uncomfortable Townsend to take questions on the delicate subject.
The Scottish boss initially tried to deflect the heat. “You are disappointed with a number of things… things that you can control, whatever it is, how you speak to the players, things that you are disappointed with the referee, disappointed with the way the team trained of played that day. Things happen.
“Obviously what happened on Sunday was disappointing. So was today’s result, but in groups, in families, you have these moments where you can choose to come together, learn from it and I believe that is what the team did throughout this week, the way they trained, they fronted up today.
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“I know rightly you will be talking about the result and that is the main thing when you play international rugby, but I saw a performance today that was better than most of our performances this year, certainly the way we started the game and then the second half wasn’t good enough to win the game, but I was proud of what the team did following that incident.”
That answer wasn’t at all enough to prevent follow-up queries which further discomforted the Scotland boss. “Look, I think we have had a statement already about this. It’s a private matter, private discussions and a decision we made within the group, and anything on the back is just gossip so we move on.
“We have moved on from that and there is nothing more to say. Nobody was ejected from the squad. We dealt with it in-house and had our best training week of the championship.
“As we mentioned, it was an incident that has been dealt with in the guidelines and as Stuart mentioned, he apologised to the group, so that is all I am going to say on it. I’m not going into details about something that happened with our group. It will be a long story.
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“As I mentioned, things happen in groups, rugby-related or non-rugby-related. It’s what happens once you have an incident – that [incident] is too strong a word. But it’s something that happened and I was delighted with the reaction of the group and how we focused on our task building into the game and how we played.”
What, though, might the controversy do for the relationship Townsend has as the Scotland coach with his skipper Hogg? “If you want a relationship with someone it’s all about the sufferance and if something bad has happened or you have done something bad on the person that you are working with, then it’s not going to be a positive relationship.
“But if you have got one-on-one conversations over certain subjects that are tough, then you are going to have a positive relationship in the long term.”
