{"id":25646,"date":"2026-02-09T08:20:05","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T08:20:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/six-nations-2026-five-talking-points-from-the-opening-round\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T08:20:05","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T08:20:05","slug":"six-nations-2026-five-talking-points-from-the-opening-round","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/six-nations-2026-five-talking-points-from-the-opening-round\/","title":{"rendered":"Six Nations 2026: Five talking points from the opening round"},"content":{"rendered":"


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That England visit comes at a crucial time for Scotland and their coach Gregor Townsend.<\/p>\n

He came into the tournament courted by Newcastle Red Bulls and with question marks over his commitment to the cause.<\/a><\/p>\n

A tame display in some horrendous weather in Rome as Italy picked up a famous 18-15 win<\/a> has left some calling for a change.<\/p>\n

Former Scotland forward John Barclay told Rugby Special: “I thought before the Six Nations that Scotland had to finish third or above.<\/p>\n

“If they don’t, which is now going to be very hard, I think it becomes a necessity to see a change.<\/p>\n

“It’s a good group of players and if you are not seeing an improvement there is an option for change. That might be the best thing for Gregor and for Scotland.”<\/p>\n

The conditions made the going tough, but it was Scotland’s heart, not hands, that were questioned.<\/p>\n

“Italy were more aggressive and that’s down to desire, not the rain,” former Scotland and British and Irish Lions prop Peter Wright told BBC Scotland.<\/p>\n

“Townsend is an experienced coach and should have known they couldn’t play the rugby they wanted to play in those conditions. Scotland lost the war in the set-pieces.”<\/p>\n

The defeat was a fifth away loss in a row in the Six Nations for Scotland and their beleaguered coach.<\/p>\n

Before the match, Townsend – who is contracted as head coach until the end of the 2027 World Cup – dismissed a report that he has agreed to take over at Newcastle Red Bulls after the World Cup as “pure speculation”.<\/p>\n

More displays like this may make that contract end date a moot point. Scotland need to dig deep and find another level of performance against England.<\/p>\n

Expect recalls for Duhan van der Merwe and Darcy Graham to provide energy and – Scotland will hope – ammunition.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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That England visit comes at a crucial time for Scotland and their coach Gregor Townsend. He came into the tournament courted by Newcastle Red Bulls and with question marks over his commitment to the cause. A tame display in some horrendous weather in Rome as Italy picked up a famous 18-15 win has left some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25647,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rugby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25646"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25646\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25648,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25646\/revisions\/25648"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}