Townsend 'proud' in spite of defeat to Ireland

Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend attempted to draw a line under the disciplinary breach by six of his players last weekend after his team ended an underwhelming Guinness Six Nations campaign with a 26-5 defeat away to Ireland.

It emerged on the eve of the game in Dublin that captain Stuart Hogg, Sam Johnson, Sione Tuipulotu, Finn Russell, Ali Price and Darcy Graham went against team protocol when leaving their hotel to visit a bar in Edinburgh last weekend after returning from Scotland's victory over Italy in Rome.

Townsend insisted the matter had been dealt with and was instead intent on focusing on how the squad responded to put on what he felt was one of their better performances in the tournament despite the scoreline in Dublin.

"Things happen," he said.

"What happened on Sunday was disappointing. So was today’s result. But in groups, in families, you have these moments where you can choose to come together and learn from it, and I believe that’s what the team did throughout this week with the way they trained and the way they fronted up today.

"Rightly, you’ll be talking about the result, which is the main thing, but I saw a performance that was better than most of our performances this year, certainly with the way we started the game and into the second half. I was proud of what the team did following the incident at the weekend."

When quizzed further about the events of last weekend, Townsend said: "We’ve put a statement out already about this. It’s a private matter and private discussions and decisions have been made within the group. Anything on the back of that is just gossip.

"We’ve moved on from that and there’s nothing more to say. Nobody was ejected from the squad. We dealt with it in-house and had our best