Kind of sum up, uh, sum up this summer, fun up- sum up the, the first block of Nations Championship games for Gregor Townsend and his men.

I, I would agree with you.

I think overall it's been a positive experience and continues that kind of overall kind of positive feel that we kind of feel should be attached to this season, um, despite some very obvious lows in the midst of it, that, that Argentina game that we've spoken about before in November and, and, and the start of the Six Nations in Rome.

They've kind of pulled it around to, to, to give a feel of, of, of something that's heading in a very much upwards trajectory.

Um, the Nations Championship has, has been a big adjustment for everyone, but probably particularly for Scotland, who have used these summer windows, uh, under Gregor very much as a kind of developmental exercise.

They've tended to go away, uh, kind of not, not to the sort of most glamorous or, or biggest destinations, but they've, they've, they've done it as, as an exercise in, in building depth.

Whereas this time clearly there's a lot more competitive edge to it.

What have been your reflections on that match against admittedly a very weakened South African side, but going away, short turnaround, big travel, travel off the back of playing in Argentina? How significant kind of was that for this Scotland team, do you think?

What have been some of your personal favorite parts of the trip?

Well, thanks to your colleague there, Matt, who gave me a top tip when I spoke to him today.

I'm staying down with friends in Cape Cod, and he'd recommended a trip to one of the Cape Cod Baseball League games.

So I was long at watching Orleans the other night against Brewster.

It wasn't a particularly close game from what I can gather.

My knowledge of your sport will probably fill that postage stamp.

But just a tremendous old school American experience.

How is the Tartan Army feeling about the way they played this past weekend, their hopes moving forward? How's everybody feeling about it?

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Would you worry maybe that the greater kind of unity they have about national pride, and they haven't been there for 50 years? And it, I guess that in itself could be quite a, a force that we'd have to deal with.

Yeah, it's probably for within it's how you can, you know, at the end of the day, you're still 11 guys on a pitch, so it's wherever they've kind of read up on and, and, you know, have been imbued with by their, their people.

What did you actually make of them in the flesh?

Yeah, you know, they've had a real up and down season generally.

You know, they had a really bad start in the URC, have picked up considerably since probably around that November test period.

But again, you know, they tend to make a struggle of every game, even the games that they end up winning.

you know there are some kind of real troughs and again that was the case yesterday that they don't manage the game as well as we're so used to seeing from Leinster teams in terms of you know just throttling the life out of opponents as I said they handed three tries on a plate to Edinburgh with intercepts which is you know you don't normally you wouldn't have thought from Leinster you'd get that in a season never mind in one half so you know clearly have still got some excellent individual talent and again when they did go route one in the second half and turned up the power it was a really kind of formidable weapon but you know they've got so many big game winners in there I don't see them going the distance in this competition and I think you know I would expect them to win that quarterfinal they'll have enough to beat sale but you then if they run into Glasgow in Scotland in the semi-final then I think that'll probably be the end of the road for them

They must be looking at the other side of the draw with Bordeaux and Toulouse and Bath and Saints thinking this is a prime opportunity.

Absolutely, and it has really opened up for them on the back of their pool campaign.

You should get some reward, shouldn't you, for a perfect pool campaign with 20 points from a possible 20.

What's changed from Rome other than the fact that they've avoided playing in torrential rain and lots of scrums against a dominant Italian pack? What's changed?

Well, you've probably summed it up there, but there's been a real kind of upturn in leadership so that in those kind of hairier moments, which you're always going to get in a test match when the momentum is going against you and it's starting to swing, they've previously not been able to manage those at all well.

It reached a horrible conclusion in the D in November when they threw away a 21-0 lead against Argentina to lose in the final 25 minutes.

That whilst being a horrible example of actually just the latest one of a pattern where they couldn't manage shifts in momentum they build commanding positions and then just fall away so there seemed to be this kind of collective brain fade that would just crop up sporadically without any kind of warning or explanation so they are getting better at that certainly in Cardiff they you know from a very slow start they were 20 25 down just after half time they were still double digits behind well into the second half but they were able to find a way through I think they've They've relied on a kind of core of emerging leaders around Sione Tupelotti, the captain, guys like Kyle Steyn, Jack Dempsey, Rory Darge, a real Glasgow imprint to that.

You know, basically, I think there's a strong sense of these guys having just become sick of being part of the same narrative of, you know, we'll take one step forward and three back.

And they really have stepped up big time to kind of, to take more responsibility on their shoulders and lift the collective.

You know, it's that great, precious quality of being able to kind of drag the best out of people alongside you as well.

They have got a back line.

Mark, what has he done to change the mindset?

It's really interesting because he brings, and he himself describes his approach as being somebody who has the best of that kind of Latin mentality.

So, you know, passionate, trying to harness the support that comes down from the stands in Rome, but also quite, as he describes it, an Anglo-Saxon or Northern European approach where he's There's a pragmatism and a will to find a way to win, regardless of the obstacles in your path.

So I think he's somebody who's brought the best of both worlds.

He's kept, he's stayed true to that Italian DNA of an excellent forward pack, but also with a bit of flair added on, like Francesco was talking about, players like Capoazzo and Laina and Ioane there, who they have in their back three.

his desire was to stop them being kind of so up and down as we mentioned they'd always been able to pull a big performance out of the bag and claim the odd impressive win but his demand was that they be competitive in every moment of every match and that's where the growth I think has been over the last couple of years that they're You know, they're still yet to beat England.

They've not beaten France and Ireland in a number of years.

For you, what would a good performance in that tournament do for the sport in Italy, both domestically and internationally?

for both of you on the kind of psychology of this match from a Scotland point of view then do they find a different level for when it comes to playing England and then from the English point of view was this once again will an England team that came up here despite in the week saying to us that it wasn't uh there was no kind of psychological demons from Calcutta Cups up here in days gone past did we see that from an England team in in the opening kind of 15-20 minutes of the game for whoever if Mark if you want to take the Scotland perspective first

an interesting couple of bits to that because you know the Scotland players and coaches will tell you till they're blue in the face that it's not that they don't you know they don't take it up a notch purely because it's England but then we've just sat and listened to Gregor downstairs who said well actually why would we present that as a negative in any way in any case if it was the case because you know the if you're going to play your best game of the year against one of the traditionally one of the strongest sides in the competition if not the world then why is that a bad thing and you know it's his belief that it's a game that has always and will always mean the most to the crowd and it's probably vindicated by some of the scenes you saw today but equally that crowd want them to be doing more than being a team that beats England and that's it so I can see both sides of that certainly but again to Will's previous point they will only change that narrative when they go and string results together so at the moment the evidence would suggest that they do raise it for England

it yeah i don't yeah i don't know what about from the the other side of this the scotland point of view mark in in the the the back three in particular was kind of like criticized in in italy but they were absolutely excellent today they were vindicated it was

absolutely vindicated and his point the the team announcement was that you know they've made changes up front and queerly kind of set piece was horrific last week and i You know, a couple of players paid the price for that.

But he felt the back line hadn't been given any kind of platform to show what they're going to do, particularly with those weather conditions.

And, you know, judging any back three, I think with that level of rain, genuinely haven't seen anything like it.

Murrayfield or anywhere in the world so it was biblical so I think it was fair to give those three a run I mean there must have been a huge temptation to go back to the back three that particularly in this fixture has done so well together but you resisted that gave those lads another crack and I think all three of them in different ways but equally impressively you know answered the call so Jamie Dolby picked up a shoulder injury towards the end there he saw him coming limping off so they don't think that is as serious as the back row injuries which are Dempsey unfortunately does look like he's now going to be out for the tournament which would be a major blow and Jamie Ritchie's picked up a knee injury which doesn't look great either but I think if Dolby were to miss out, then it becomes a really interesting one because do you go straight back to Doohan on the left there or do you mix it up and put Steyn there and Darcy on the right? Those two have been so neck and neck in so many things, tries particularly over the years.

It would be a close call.

Have you got another name to throw in there or do you go along those sorts of lines?

No, very much along those lines.

I think in our piece that we have on the site on Monday, going up against the AI super bot and then trying to put our respective wits against that.

Yeah, I think France will win it purely on the basis of Not purely, but largely on the basis of the fact that they're at home in that Super Saturday game against England.

Had that been at Twickenham, I would have probably flipped that because I think they'll both be going into it in a winner-takes-all scenario.

Albeit, as Eliza said, there is the chance that I think France could slip up even as early as this first game.

I think the demise of Ireland has been potentially overstated, certainly before...

Has November and the back end of 2025 kind of dampened expectations for Scotland heading into this Six Nations?