Should Townsend continue or is it time for a change for Scotland?

In the early fall, Gregor Townsend must have thought the order had failed; that Extended contract With Scotland, it was the international team he felt he was in Best place it was In his eight years in office and a new side gig as Consultant at Red Bull. Life was good.

From the way he was talking, it was clear the coach was anticipating a big November. So much for that. What we have now is a team being booed after losing a 21-point lead to Argentina, and the FA seemingly dodging questions about the situation and the upcoming match against Tonga that are completely unrelated to the matter.

Scotland will win and they will probably win well, but they won’t prove anything.

They had the opportunity against New Zealand and Argentina to show their improvement but missed it. The only thing they have succeeded in doing is rubbernecking the image that a rapidly growing number of people have of them as a talented but fragile group treading water, coached by a system that has done some good things but that has been around for a very long time.

Scotland are a good team when their mood is right. Only good teams can go 21-0 against the top-flight Pumas. Only good teams can score 17 unanswered points against the All Blacks while creating plenty of other chances.

So they do things that only good teams can do, but then they do a bunch of other things that good teams would never do, like lose a 21-0 lead at the start. Such as panicking, giving up soft penalties and easy field position in the final minutes against New Zealand.

Their split personality is always there, you never know what will come first, Jekyll or Hyde.

They were blown out early against the All Blacks and in turn blew out the Pumas early a week later. They rallied superbly against the New Zealanders and then exploded. They rallied briefly, through a Finn Russell penalty to make it a 12-point game against Argentina, and then exploded again.

It’s an exhausting cycle of failure on the part of a team still suffering from a weak psychological state.

The stats published after Sunday, thanks to Statinator Kevin Millar, focused on the last 25 minutes of Scotland’s past five matches against teams ranked in the top 12 in the world.

Scotland 3-33 Argentina; Scotland 3-7 New Zealand; Fiji 14-0 Scotland. France 12-0 Scotland. Scotland 0-21 Wales. They lost four of the five. Six points were scored and 87 points conceded. 2 penalties for 13 attempts against.