Ritchie back to his best as Townsend praises mentality of 'proud' former Scotland skipper
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In a match full of stand out performances their was special mention for flanker Jamie Ritchie who was one of Scotland’s best performers as they ended their Autumn Nations Test Series with a 27-13 win over Australia at Murrayfield.
The 28-year old has had to deal with the disappointment of not just losing the Scotland captaincy but also losing a regular place in the starting XV. However, against the Wallabies he looked like a man with a point to prove and head coach Gregor Townsend praised the mentality of the ‘proud Scot’.
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Hide Ad“He played well,” said Townsend. “I think he was really smart in his decisions around the ruck. He got a very important jackal for us, but a couple of other times, listening to the referee as well. I thought he got a lot of involvement in attack.
“That was great to see. The back row were physical. Josh's impact was excellent. Not just with the try, obviously the try was excellent, but his speed off the line kept the Wallabies on the back foot in that last quarter.
“I think he's a very proud Scotsman. He's represented his country a number of times and played in some key victories. He actually started both our victories in the Six Nations this year. He's worked hard to get back into the team. We've got a very competitive back row. We're missing Jack Dempsey and Andy Christie, but the starting back row did well today and Josh obviously did very well off the bench.
“He's handled that disappointment of not being involved so well. At the end of last season with Edinburgh, it was his best rugby of the season. I think I mentioned in the build-up to the game about how important he would be aerially, and he was.
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Hide Ad“He got the ball back a couple of times. On one occasion, we were lucky that he won it back and Australia won the scraps, but that was important to us, both on the ground and in the air. He also made good decisions in attack.”
It was a pleasing afternoon for the Murayfield faithful to end their year on an impressive victory. However, the head coach still believes their is more to come from this side.
“We'd seen the last two weeks' performances and they were very dangerous in attack. They scored a lot of points. But we've got a very good defence. It's really well coached by Steve Tandy. We've been at a high level now for the last couple of seasons in defence. We knew this team would threaten us.
“Australia have a couple of major threats, which is the ability to play short balls either side of the ruck. It gives them a very good go forward. It caught us offside a couple of times. They also have some special plays that they bring out.
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Hide Ad“One obviously led to a try late on in the game. So we had to be really alert in defence and physical. I think at times we were. It wasn't perfect by any means, but I felt that the composure in defence close to our line was on show. The effort was always on show.
“If we can limit them to not get over 10 or 20 points and get your attack into gear, then we know we've got multiple threats. On a dry day, we managed to get the ball into those threats' hands. Our fitness, with the guys from the bench, but also the starters, we outworked the defence and that created opportunities for us.”
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