Gregor Townsend was certainly the happier of the two head coaches after his Scotland side defeated England 30-21 at Murrayfield in the Six Nations on Saturday evening.
A superb hat-trick from Duhan van der Merwe proved crucial as the Scots kept their hopes of winning the Six Nations alive and won the Calcutta Cup for the fourth year in a row.
The winger's third try in particular was spectacular as he combined with Finn Russell who provided him with an exquisite cross-field kick in the build-up.
Russell's performance was also flawless as he had a perfect day from the tee failing to miss an opportunity.
𝐇𝐀𝐓-𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐂𝐊!!!
van der Merwe gets his third!
What a bit of play from Finn Russell! pic.twitter.com/6cAt0ZWgwd— Virgin Media Sport (@VMSportIE) February 24, 2024
While Townsend was delighted with the performance he was also left slightly perplexed that new smart mouthguard technology left him having to take a player off for the second successive Six Nations game.
Prop Zander Fagerson came off in the first half for a Head Injury Assessment provoked by an alert that came from his mouthguard.
The technology works in real time to send alerts of high forces to the independent matchday doctor. This enables players who have experienced a high acceleration event, but not shown symptoms or been seen by broadcast cameras, to be taken off and assessed.
Townsend expressed his doubts about it after the game citing the Fagerson incident.
"Just a normal tackle. We have to really watch what we are doing here..."
- Scotland boss Gregor Townsend on the mouthguard alert that resulted in Zander Fagerson going off for 10 minutes early on versus England. #SCOvENG #ScotlandRugby #GuinnessM6N pic.twitter.com/uqvp4mJhdQ— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) February 25, 2024
“I saw the tackle again – just a normal tackle. I think we have to really watch what we’re doing here. Trust in technology that’s not been proven,” he said.
“What we’ve been doing over the last few years is making sure that any symptoms that are seen, a number of people can flag up whether someone goes off for an HIA.
“Zander was taken off for 10 minutes after what looked like a normal tackle but there was a spike alert from the mouthguard.
“I know in Super Rugby there were a couple of alerts and players were saying ‘there’s nothing wrong here, I’ve just made a tackle’, so we’ve got to watch that because you don’t want to be taking off our best players off the field for 10 minutes if there are no issues around concussion.
“We want to protect our players, that’s for certain, but there’s a bit more work to do before this technology is correct.”
Two weeks earlier Scotish player George Turner became the first player forced off for a HIA because of the smart mouthguard in Six Nations history.
Whether World Rugby will review the technology in light of the concerns remains to be seen.
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