\u201cWe\u2019ve got to regroup and we\u2019re the guys in the changing room that have got to ultimately get over the hump. That\u2019s the only thing I care about is what\u2019s said in the change room and not what\u2019s said on the stage.<\/p>\n
\u201cLook, to be honest, I haven\u2019t been looking at much of the media after last week,\u201d he added. \u201cAs captain, this will be the first time where it\u2019s actually been difficult for me to understand the other side of the coin.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not what\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, it\u2019s about keeping the group tight and what matters is what\u2019s said in our changing room and how we feel about each other.<\/p>\n
\u201cLook, I\u2019ll be honest, this week was a difficult week for all the boys. It was difficult for the coaches as well. I\u2019m 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe hardest thing for us is that we now don\u2019t 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\u2019ve 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend <\/strong>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.<\/p>\n \u201cWe imposed our physicality on Tonga a lot throughout the game,\u201d he said. \u201cWe 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.<\/p>\n \u201cThe 20 minutes we had against Argentina is the negative throughout the four games, while it\u2019s only 20 minutes it\u2019s 20 minutes that cost us a game and that\u2019s what we have to get right.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to manage those momentum swings better, that\u2019s a big learning from this campaign. The players like they did today are the ones that drive our performance and I\u2019m so grateful work with this player group.<\/p>\n \u201cThe 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\u2019t and that\u2019s what we\u2019re trying to work on.<\/p>\n \u201cCoaches aren\u2019t too important and relevant in team performance at times.<\/p>\n \u201cWe learn game to game. I\u2019ve never been more convinced. The New Zealand game was one of the best performances we\u2019ve seen. The 20 minutes against Argentina doesn\u2019t change what the team did the week before. Of course we want it to be perfect \u2013 we have to be better when the opposition have their moments.<\/p>\n \u201cThe game the players are putting out there is a game that can take us to success, whether that\u2019s Six Nations or beyond.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve got to make sure what we\u2019re talking about here. I don\u2019t know if there\u2019s an entitlement around us beating the All Blacks and Argentina\u00a0\u2013 these are top-quality teams.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have no right to beat any team. We have focused a lot on the last 20 minutes and that\u2019s something we have to improve on, but to look at it and go \u2018the other stuff isn\u2019t good and we have to do something different\u2019, I totally disagree.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWe\u2019ve got to regroup and we\u2019re the guys in the changing room that have got to ultimately get…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":590024,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5009],"tags":[748,85185,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-590023","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scotland","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-divi","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-scotland","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115602641714504090","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=590023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/590024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=590023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=590023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=590023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}