Spiky Sione Tuipulotu tells Scotland critics they will do talking on pitch

The captain declined to hype up his side’s Six Nations chances and admitted he didn’t want to give fuel to the team’s critics after what he said had been “a difficult week”.

The repercussions of last Sunday’s defeat by Argentina, when Scotland blew a 21-0 lead to lose 33-24, are clearly still being felt within the squad.

“Look, I'll be honest, this week was a difficult week for all the boys,” said Tuipulotu. “It was difficult for the coaches as well.

“I'm 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.

“The hardest thing for us is that we now don’t 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’ve 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.

“We have had chances against New Zealand and Argentina, so there is obviously frustration there. But there have been some positive things in there for us as well.”

Scotland bookended their autumn campaign with big wins over the USA and Tonga but it was the games in the middle, against the All Blacks and Argentina, which will be remembered as the ones which got away.

The national side will not play again until the Six Nations opener against Italy in Rome on February 7 but Tuipulotu - perhaps wisely - declined the chance to talk up Scotland’s chances.

“To be honest, I'm kind of tired of sitting up here and promising what we're going to do,” he said. “I think a big focus for myself is getting into tip-top form going into that Six Nations.

“We'll take care of those games when they come, one game at a time. I think it starts off with a pretty tough task in Italy away and one that we need to fix and learn from, from losing there last time [in 2024].

“I'm not going to sit up here and give you guys headlines to go write in the media about how we're promising this and how we're promising that just for you guys to create a headline and turn your back on us. I'm just going to sit up here and be honest about that. I'm not going to give you that headline.

“We've got to regroup and we're the guys in the changing room that have got to ultimately get over the hump.”

Tuipulotu admitted that he had found some of the criticism tough to take.

“As captain, this will be the first time where it's actually been difficult for me to understand the other side of the coin,” said the centre. “For me, it's about keeping the group tight and what matters is what's said in our change room and how we feel about each other.”

Scotland had to match Tonga’s extreme physicality in a bruising encounter which saw the visitors have one player red-carded (for 20 minutes) and three others sent to the sin-bin. Gregor Townsend’s side won with eight converted tries but there was a 36-minute period in the middle of the game during which they failed to score a point.

“It was a tough game and I know how tough it can be playing against Tonga,” added Tuipulotu. “Those kind of defences can sometimes be hard to attack because they are not predictable. They made things difficult for us at times.”

Converted tries from Jamie Ritchie, George Turner and Max Williamson gave Scotland a 21-0 lead at half-time. Further scores after the interval from Duhan van der Merwe and doubles from Ewan Ashman and George Horne took the game away from the tourists as Scotland finished with a flourish.

Tonga’s physicality crossed the line on several occasions and Lotu Inisi and Veikoso Poloniati were both fortunate not to be shown cards for late, dangerous tackles on George Turner and Ollie Smith, respectively.

“I thought the tackle on George Turner, where it was basically no arms and high contact, could have been a red card,” said Tuipulotu. “There were a couple of tackles like that actually.”

Townsend agreed. “I can't remember the Ollie Smith one, but I definitely thought the George Turner one was more than a penalty,” he said.

The coach was pleased with the way his side matched their opponents physically and dismissed suggestions that playing a side ranked 19th in the world counted for little.

“I don't think any Test match is irrelevant,” he said. “I was delighted for the players who got the opportunity to play for Scotland, for [stand-off] Fergus Burke, it was his first one at Murrayfield.

“They had a great crowd to get behind them and they delivered what we asked for them. I loved our physicality. I felt we were imposing our game on Tonga around the breakdown, around our ball carries and in particular in defence. I thought that was the best tackling that we put on throughout the campaign.

“It's great for Lee [Radford, defence coach], who's with us for the first time, to see his work that he's been doing come out in a game against a physical team. There were a lot of good moments in the first half and then we weren't as accurate and sometimes our depth off nine, we were a bit too eager.

“I think the stoppages didn't necessarily help us. The penalties and the cards obviously helped us when we were a man up and when our game into a flow in the last 20 minutes – which is a credit to the players who were still on the field but also our bench – that suited us much more. We put away a tiring team.”

Asked if the campaign as a whole had been a failure, Townsend said: “If you want to put it in language like that, yes. It was obviously a disappointment not to beat New Zealand for the first time and a disappointment not to beat Argentina when we were leading. In terms of performances, the majority of our game is what we were working on and what the players are delivering at a high level. That's something very positive to build on.”