Gregor Townsend heaped praise on Finn Russell after naming an unchanged Scotland team to play England and declined any opportunity to get involved in mind games with Eddie Jones.
Today will tell whether the combative Jones has any more barbed observations about Scotland or perhaps even Russell, given that his singling out of Rhys Patchell prior to England’s game against Wales was widely perceived to have helped turn the Scarlets stand off from the worldbeater he looked like against the Scots in Cardiff to the nervous novice he seemed at Twickenham.
In the meantime Townsend declined any chance to chuck in a few comments arched at England, instead praising them and their coach effusively. The nearest he got to a Jones-style attack was when he made a mild observation England’s defence might creep offside too often, but that was it.
He gave his full backing to Russell, under fire after two poor performances so far in the Six Nations. His coach, however, thought he was great against the French.
“Finn was very good in the second half,” insisted Townsend, who said there was never any question that anyone other than Russell would start at 10.
“I believe that, if Finn had stayed on the field, we would have won the game and potentially had a couple of more tries.
“He was building into a really good game. He had a couple of breaks in the second half, putting other people into space. He was a big part of how we were on the front foot in the second half.”
When asked to comment on Jones’ sarcasm prior to the championship, saying Scotland were the darlings of the media and that they played “side to side”, Townsend said he took it as a compliment.
“He was talking about us even back then and obviously that’s a good thing,” he added.
“Eddie’s a brilliant coach, the last two years have shown that, what he has done with this England team, the consistency, the striving to get better. You see how players are looking to take on bigger role in decision-making and he had success previous to England as well.
“He has a great coaching team around him.
“You can’t think that they haven’t covered off one aspect, they have covered everything.
“That is what you see when you play the best coached teams.”