Gregor Townsend backs Scotland to recover from Rugby World Cup exit
Gregor Townsend considers Scotland can recuperate from their Rugby World Cup heartache but says they need to learn from the errors that cost them at Japan.
Scotland crashed out at the pool point for only the second time in World Cup history following having a 28-21 loss to the hosts from Yokohama.
It was a another painful conclusion into a campaign that got off to a dismal start with the 27-3 thrashing from Ireland.
The Scots recovered from that huge dent to their assurance to nil both Samoa and Russia but their defence struggled to contain a rampant Brave Blossoms assault that for 45 minutes refused to relent using their ceaseless surges.
The hosts scored four attempts in that period to kill off Scotlands hopes of attaining the quarter-finals as they rather set their own knockout conflict with South Africa in Tokyo on October 20.
Its back to the drawing board for Townsend along with his side following a gloomy 2019.
However, the head coach – whose side finished fifth in this seasons Six Nations – stated:There is much more in this group.
Experiences are what force you like a group and the way you react to those experiences.
It was a unique situation we were in tonight. We always knew it was going to be a struggle playing against Japan awarded our short turnaround from the Russia game.
We experienced the group and we now had the capability at the beginning of that game to go on and win it by the necessary quantity of points.
That we didnt is enormously disappointing. We have to learn from that. We do not get another turn at the World Cup for 3 years but weve got to improve as we get to next tournament which is the Six Nations in three months time
The build-up into the match was overshadowed by the threat of Typhoon Hagibis, with the battle at Yokohamas International Stadium only getting the green light eight hours before kick-off.
However, Townsend refused to work with that as an excuse for his sides defeat.
It looked promising for Scotland when Finn Russell put them ahead but Japan hit back with Kenki Fukuokas dual, plus scores from Kotaro Matsushima and Keita Inagaki.
Scotland refused to return without a fight but second-half scores from forwards WP Nel and Zander Fagerson were not enough.
The players acted very professionally, said Townsend. We always believed the game was about to proceed. Yesterdays training was jeopardized. We knew this week was going to be a struggle.
We are disappointed. We examine the sport from our perspective, we were disappointed we did not win.
We started well and then we didnt find the ball for the remaining first half.
We conceded two soft tries and we left a lot of errors. It made it hard to find the result we were looking for.
The boys put in a huge shift from the second half, however we did not do enough in that past 20 minutes to find the win.
Its a huge blow to not reach the knockout stages, we came here with high ambitions.
Getting out of the pool stages was the first portion of that. We have worked incredibly hard over the past couple of months so were hugely disappointed.
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