Prodigal son needs to pull the right strings

GREGOR Townsend, the longest serving head coach in the Six Nations, has been in charge of Scotland since 2017.

He was a player the last time the championship trophy called north of the border home, and then it was only competed for by five teams.

Since 2000, the tournament has largely held despair for Scotland, laced with hope. It is only in the last few years that expectation has been added to the mix, but consistency has proved elusive and successes have tended to be one-off.

Scotland stand fifth in the all-time Six Nations table with only Italy below them. They have won exactly one-third of their 120 matches and have not won a Triple Crown, never mind a title or a Grand Slam.

"It's part of success, failing," said Townsend, right, at last week's launch of the tournament in Dublin.

In which case Scotland should be favourites. They come into the Six Nations after a third World Cup campaign in four in which they failed to reach the knock-out stage. They were in a pool with the eventual winners, South Africa, and the number one ranked team in the world at the time, Ireland, and if they did not exit with a whimper, struggled again to take the final step.