19-02-2025
Blaming Townsend for Scotland depth 'quite harsh'
Former England winger Chris Ashton believes Scotland's Gregor Townsend has been the victim of his own success as national team head 51-year-old has been in charge since 2017, with his win percentage placing him among the top three Scottish coaches of all-time."For Scotland, there's pressure on Gregor," Ashton told the Scottish Rugby Podcast. "The team that he has, they've maybe excelled than they should have done anyway. It's a really small player pool to pick from.""Maybe we're looking at it the wrong way, maybe he has exceeded with what he's got available in his player pool. Maybe they've been so good that people have come to expect a certain level of performance from the team."Scotland have finished fourth in four of Townsend's seven Six Nations tournaments, finishing third is a belief this his current squad is his best ever assembled but in the most recent loss to Ireland, they lost two key players to injury early on and subsequently crumbled."If you take a couple of players out, like you did against Ireland - you lose Darcy [Graham], you lose Finn [Russell], no [Sione] Tuipulotu already - things start to look very drastically different, quickly."That isn't necessarily Gregor's fault. You can coach players to where you want to, within their limits. Whether they've got the strength in depth to finish games off against big teams is a very different question. To put that on Gregor seems quite harsh to me."You can listen to the full interview with Chris Ashton Scottish Rugby Podcast by clicking here.
