“We’ve got to regroup and we’re the guys in the changing room that have got to ultimately get over the hump. That’s the only thing I care about is what’s said in the change room and not what’s said on the stage.
“Look, to be honest, I haven’t been looking at much of the media after last week,” he added. “As captain, this will be the first time where it’s actually been difficult for me to understand the other side of the coin.
“It’s not what’s going to be said up on the stage or making promises and headlines and stuff like that. No one really cares about that. The only thing people care about is us actually getting over the hump.
“For me, it’s about keeping the group tight and what matters is what’s said in our changing room and how we feel about each other.
“Look, I’ll be honest, this week was a difficult week for all the boys. It was difficult for the coaches as well. I’m just proud of the boys. That takes an emotional toll as well. No-one is hurting more than the boys in the changing room after what happened against Argentina.
“The hardest thing for us is that we now don’t have a Six Nations game for another two-and-a-half months. We would love to go again. But we will all go back to our clubs now and we’ve got some huge game at club level. The important thing is to focus on those and make sure we go into the Six Nations in red-hot form.
“We have had chances against New Zealand and Argentina, so there is obviously frustration there. But there has been some positive things in there for us as well.
“It was a tough game [today]. I know how tough it can be playing against Tonga. Those kind of defences can sometimes be hard to attack because they are not predictable. They made things difficult for us at times.”
Meanwhile, Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend congratulated his team for the way they bounced back at the end of a tough week, and called for some perspective when assessing the campaign as a whole.
“We imposed our physicality on Tonga a lot throughout the game,” he said. “We felt with the pressure we were putting Tonga under, they would crack at some point in terms of the spaces would open up and our fitness would tell. We could have scored more points during that period but Tonga are a top team and you have to work hard for your points.
“The 20 minutes we had against Argentina is the negative throughout the four games, while it’s only 20 minutes it’s 20 minutes that cost us a game and that’s what we have to get right.
“We need to manage those momentum swings better, that’s a big learning from this campaign. The players like they did today are the ones that drive our performance and I’m so grateful work with this player group.
“The way the team is playing, I believe, is inspiring our supporters, putting top teams under pressure and it should have led to victories. It didn’t and that’s what we’re trying to work on.
“Coaches aren’t too important and relevant in team performance at times.
“We learn game to game. I’ve never been more convinced. The New Zealand game was one of the best performances we’ve seen. The 20 minutes against Argentina doesn’t change what the team did the week before. Of course we want it to be perfect – we have to be better when the opposition have their moments.
“The game the players are putting out there is a game that can take us to success, whether that’s Six Nations or beyond.
“We’ve got to make sure what we’re talking about here. I don’t know if there’s an entitlement around us beating the All Blacks and Argentina – these are top-quality teams.
“We have no right to beat any team. We have focused a lot on the last 20 minutes and that’s something we have to improve on, but to look at it and go ‘the other stuff isn’t good and we have to do something different’, I totally disagree.”