Calgary Tribune - Townsend urges Scotland to use Nations Championship as World Cup springboard

The cross-hemisphere tournament resumes next month with Scotland second in the European standings ahead of Murrayfield clashes with New Zealand, Australia and Japan.

The Nations Championship is designed to provide an extra competitive edge to the July and November international windows.

It culminates in a finals weekend at Twickenham, with northern and southern hemisphere teams matched according to their respective rankings, with an overall winner crowned.

"We're in a competition where we're in a decent place right now, so we've got that motivation of not just taking the game in isolation, but where we can finish up as high as possible and be involved against a leading side in that final weekend," said Scotland coach Townsend after naming a 37-man squad on Monday.

"And then 12 months from now, the (World Cup) pool stages will be finished.... Our goal (is) to be playing knockout rugby in 12 months' time, and between now and then, play our best rugby."

Scotland have failed to get out of the group stages at the past two World Cups but will be expected to reach the last 16 from a Pool D, which also features old foes Ireland as well as Portugal and Uruguay.

Newcastle back-row Ollie Leatherbarrow is the only new face in the squad as Scotland look to build on an encouraging start to the Nations Championship, having lost just once in three games -- a 42-28 reverse against world champions South Africa in Pretoria in July.

"We want to finish as high up as possible and win the northern hemisphere table, or at least finish top two, top three, so we're going to play a real big gun from the southern hemisphere (in the finals weekend at Twickenham)," said Townsend.

"We got huge learning from that game out in South Africa. We're going to get huge learning playing New Zealand in a couple of weeks' time, so we want to be playing those teams more regularly. That's a motivation."

Scotland squad

Backs: Fergus Burke, Jamie Dobie, Darcy Graham, George Horne, Rory Hutchinson, Huw Jones, Tom Jordan, Blair Kinghorn, Stafford McDowall, Kyle Rowe, Finn Russell, Ollie Smith, Kyle Steyn, Sione Tuipulotu (capt), Duhan van der Merwe, Ben White

Forwards: Ewan Ashman, Josh Bayliss, Gregor Brown, Scott Cummings, Alex Craig, Rory Darge, Jack Dempsey, Matt Fagerson, Zander Fagerson, Jonny Gray, Gregor Hiddleston, Will Hurd, Ollie Leatherbarrow, Nathan McBeth, Liam McConnell, Elliot Millar Mills, Jamie Ritchie, Pierre Schoeman, Rory Sutherland, Seb Stephen, Max Williamson

Coach: Gregor Townsend (SCO)

L.Jackson--CT