Six Nations: Is this as good as it gets for Scotland or is this side capable of more?

Is your glass half-full, or half-empty?

Or, if you’re Scotland’s men’s rugby team, is it two-fifths or three-fifths full?

Those have been the spoils to divide for seven of the eight Six Nations championships under Gregor Townsend, with either two or three wins to show for the annual mid-season slugfest.

Highs of third place in 2018 and 2023, a low of fifth place in 2019, and fourth place in every championship in between.

Is this Scotland’s natural place in the order of northern hemisphere rugby, or do we need to believe in better?

This season Scotland showed off their world-class attack with scintillating play in every game bar the defeat to Ireland.

They particularly showed their desire to front up physically in the trips to take on England and France.

Both Twickenham and Stade de France witnessed strong all-round performances from the Scots…but both ended in defeat.

Also nagging away in the overall assessment of the championship from a dark blues perspective are the alarming drop-offs that almost allowed Italy and Wales back into the game when Scotland should have been looking for a ruthless demolition of inferior opponents.

When it comes to the crunch, all-too-often there is just a degree of fragility – mentally and physically – that holds Scotland in check, just short of being able to consistently beat the big beasts.

So in the wake of Saturday’s 35-16 reverse in Paris – with the French still raucously celebrating their title win – the head coach was asked if he was considering whether it was time for a change.

It does not feel as if Townsend believes so. He has a contract until next April and expects to honour it.

After eight years in the job, he is heartened by a burgeoning embrace of physicality by his side, and by the emergence of a young crop that can be moulded into a new generation that marries muscle with the mighty speed in attack that this Scotland side is best known for.

It is true that Scotland’s performances against Ireland away and South Africa at home in 2024, and away to England and France in 2025, showed more purposeful power than often the team has previously produced.
But the ledger shows it in black and white – all four of those games were defeats. The glass ceiling is holding firm.

It is difficult to paint the Townsend era as anything other than a good one for Scotland.

He has a 55% win ratio over 92 games – the second-best record of any Scotland coach in history, bettered only by Sir Ian McGeechan’s tenure between 1988 and 1993, which delivered a Grand Slam in 1990.

Townsend has delivered consistent victories over England, Italy, Australia and Argentina plus five wins against France and three over Wales. Only Ireland, New Zealand and South Africa stand undefeated against Townsend’s Scotland.

Six Nations performances have stabilised without the threat of the Wooden Spoon that hung over Murrayfield every spring since the dawn of the millennium.

His side has knocked down dire winless runs away from home in Paris, London and Cardiff.

Though pool stage exits at the World Cups in 2019 and 2023 were a significant disappointment, Scotland have generally restored belief and hope under Townsend.

Stars have flourished or been born on the international stage. How the Scots fans longed for the quality of Finn Russell, Darcy Graham, Huw Jones and Blair Kinghorn during those long fallow years.

But the question mark sitting squarely over the Thistle now begs the question – is this as good as it gets? Or are Scotland capable of more?

And if the latter is the case – can Gregor Townsend unlock it?