Gregor Townsend believes there has been growth in the Scotland side after an autumn that yielded three wins out of four, but admitted his team’s best performance came in the defeat to world champions South Africa.
Townsend said the 27-13 win over the Wallabies, which ended the visitors’ hopes of a Grand Slam on their European tour, was “slightly off” but felt the win was built on a strong defensive showing and impact from the bench.
“We'd seen the last two weeks' performances and they were very dangerous in attack,” Townsend said of the Wallabies.
“We've got a very good defence - really well coached by Steve Tandy. We've been at a high level now for the last couple of seasons in defence. We knew this team would threaten us.
“It wasn't perfect by any means, but I felt that the composure in defence close to our line was on show.”
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Scotland had to weather an early storm from the visitors, and missed chances of their own in attack.
“I think it depends if you're a glass half full or glass half empty,” the Scotland boss said.
“I think there were opportunities there. It wasn't so much the phases we had in their 22. We didn't really get that until the last 10 minutes of the first half.
“It was those opportunities - off a lineout when it looked like Huw Jones was through a gap and there was another pass that didn't go to hand when we could have had line breaks.
“While they were frustrating, it was also a message to say to the players that those opportunities will still be there. We just need to execute them better.
“You never know how a game is going to turn out. You need that possession in the second half to still follow through on the opportunities and we got that.”
Townsend also gave his view on the controversial second half moment where Ben White appeared to be taken out by Australia fullback Tom Wright, only for the incident to go unpunished.
“I think if it hadn't been play on, it would have been quite a lot of things together. Yellow card, penalty try.
“Let's say the ref got that one right and move on.”
The incident angered the Murrayfield crowd and Scotland took advantage with Duhan van der Merwe’s try coming just moments later.
Townsend added: “There were a couple of moments where we got through the line and you could sense that something was going to happen. You then have to keep that momentum going and we did.”
After three wins from four this autumn, Townsend believes his team are ready to kick on again come the Six Nations.
“I believe that experience has made us better too.
“A few things that we learned from that campaign, off-field and on-field, it might be something tactically, technically, but also how we have to grow as a group mentally.
“I think we've seen that in this campaign and we've got to grow again next campaign.”
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