Inside Gregor Townsend's Scotland texts with Steve Clarke and Finn Russell's McTominay awe

Gregor Townsend was as appreciative as any supporter and hopes his rugby team can make the country similarly proud in a couple of years’ time.

The draw for the 2027 Rugby World Cup was made in Sydney on Wednesday and placed Townsend’s Scotland in Pool D alongside top-ranked Ireland and underdogs Uruguay and Portugal. You have to go back to 2015 for the last time Scotland reached the knockout stage of the tournament but the new format suggests qualification from the pool phase is all but nailed on for Scotland in Australia. The top two from each of the six groups will proceed to the knockout stage along with the four best third-placed teams.

The real test will be whether they can progress beyond that. An extra knockout round awaits the qualifiers and, if results go according to the seedings, Scotland will face France in the last 16.

Townsend’s side will likely avoid the French if they can find a way to beat Ireland, something they have not done in 11 games during the coach’s eight-plus years in charge. They might need a moment of inspiration similar to the overhead kick from which Scott McTominay opened the scoring against Denmark.

Townsend has his own talisman in Finn Russell and it was the Scotland stand-off who showed the coach the goal which set the football team on their way to qualification, prompting Townsend to get in touch with Steve Clarke in the aftermath of the Hampden thriller.

“I spoke to him. I didn’t meet him but we exchanged messages,” said Townsend. “That was such a good week.

Finn Russell’s awe at McTominay goal

“I was sitting in this room [at Scotland’s training base at Oriam]. I had a one-on-one with Finn as the [Denmark] game kicked off and he was showing me the overhead goal on his phone. He came in and said, ‘Have you seen this?’ So, after that we just watched it in there, the coaches were watching with the other players, some players were in the kit room watching it.

“It was a brilliant night and it just shows you again that a victory can mean so much for the country and we’ve felt that with our team, with a Calcutta Cup for example. This is them getting to a first World Cup since 1998 which is why it meant so much.”

Townsend’s Scotland team haven’t had to go through the stress of qualifying for the Rugby World Cup but the real pressure will come when they meet Ireland in Australia. It’s the third time in a row the sides have been paired in the group stage, with Ireland coming out on top emphatically in Japan in 2019 and France in 2023.

Townsend hopes to change the narrative in two years’ time in what is likely to be his final fling as head coach. He thinks the new format will help, with the competition now featuring 24 teams instead of 20. The expanded tournament will feature six pools of four teams, replacing the four pools of five that had been in place since Australia last hosted the World Cup in 2003 when Townsend made his final appearance as a Scotland player.

“It definitely gives more teams opportunities to get to the knockout stage,” he said. “I think you'll obviously get some teams that have never been in a knockout stage before, so that's great for them. I think those knockout games will be really tricky, there's obviously more jeopardy in your fourth game in a World Cup being a knockout, whereas previously the fourth game was in a pool.

“And then there's positives and negatives of finishing first in your pool and playing a runner-up [in the last 16], or finishing first in your pool and playing a third team.

“But I think everybody knows that getting out of the group to the last 16 is not the same as getting out of the group to the last eight, and you want to get as far as possible in the tournament.”

Scotland and the other 23 teams will have to wait until February 3 next year to discover the fixture schedule and where they will be playing. All we know at the moment is that Australia will be involved in the opening match in Perth on October 1, 2027 and that six other cities will be staging games: Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Newcastle, Sydney and Townsville. The hosts have been drawn alongside New Zealand in Pool A and a match against their trans-Tasman rivals would certainly make a tasty opener.

All Scotland’s opponents are well known to Townsend. Ireland are all too familiar and the Scots played both Uruguay and Portugal last year, beating the South Americans in Montevideo 31-19 and the Portuguese 59-21 at Murrayfield.

They have also met Uruguay and Portugal at previous World Cups. Townsend scored a try in a 43-12 win over Uruguay at Murrayfield at the 1999 tournament and Portugal made their World Cup debut against Scotland in 2007 in Saint-Etienne.

Uruguay are ranked 14th in the world - five places below Scotland - while Portugal are 20th and Ireland fourth.