Townsend lauds performance of debutant Redpath

Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend was significantly impressed by youngster Cameron Redpath’s international debut at Twickenham which saw the Scots topple the English 11-6 at that venue for the first time in 38 years.

It was a fortunate development when Scotland secured the services of Redpth, whose father Bryan was also a Scotland international, as the 21 year-old turned out for England U20 and was also involved in Eddie Jones’ Six Nations squad just eleven months ago.

Redpath put in an admirable shift, gaining a total of 40m for his team, making five tackles and also winning a vital penalty which broke some of England’s momentum as they attempted a comeback.

“I thought it was an incredible debut,” said Townsend. “To come into a squad that you have not trained with before, to meet players for the first time and then integrate into our way of playing and getting used to new players – we saw his skillset, his confidence, his maturity. 

“We have seen that at Bath and we have seen it in training, but you don’t expect someone on their debut to have such an accomplished start when you are just new to a team, against England of all teams in a place where we have not won for so long, but he was excellent.

“He got on the ball a lot on the first half which helped him and he did well when he got involved, some really good carries, some really good passes and he secured an excellent jackal penalty for us in the second half. He showed his competitiveness, his skill and it’s really exciting what he can achieve in his career, what we can do with him over the next few years.

“I know what I did in ’93, which was not play very well on my debut. It was a much better debut for Cam Redpath then I had back in ’93, that’s for sure.”