Townsend was astonished that Taumoepeau did not have his yellow card upgraded to a red.
Townsend was pleased with the way his team handled the pressure of needing a bonus-point win to keep themselves in with a sniff of qualifying for the quarter-finals from a formidable pool B. The Scots’ seven tries were all scored by different players and four of them came in the first half, reducing any sense of anxiety associated with chasing the bonus.
“It was a bonus – literally – that we got those four tries in the first half,” he said. “It was probably a bit ahead of what we expected. Credit to the players for doing that. “Tonga are a very good side with very good individuals. They are very physical. We talked about the fact that the work we did in the first 20 minutes might not necessarily lead to points on the board but we believed we could take away their fitness.”Ireland’s win over South Africa on Saturday made Scotland’s qualification bid slightly harder than it already was as Townsend’s men will now have to beat the Irish in Paris in the last game and ensure their opponents do not get a losing bonus point.
“Reading a few comments after the game, it looked like Ireland were already in the quarter-finals,” smiled Townsend, mildly miffed by such talk. “Even chatting to a few people today, they were saying it will be Ireland against New Zealand. Maybe that’s already been decided. “We know we have to win our next two games, and it’s likely now we’ll have to win with either a bonus point or deny Ireland a bonus point. But we’ve got a game next week to focus on and we’ve got to get maximum points from that one first.”
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