Gregor Townsend refused to let his side get ahead of themselves after Scotland started their Guinness Six Nations campaign in perfect fashion with a 33-20 triumph over Italy.
A Blair Kinghorn hat-trick wrapped up a bonus-point victory for Scotland at BT Murrayfield, one that sees them top the standings as early pacesetters at the conclusion of Round One.
But Townsend, who has now guided his side to eight consecutive Guinness Six Nations wins on home soil, is well aware of the relentless challenge posed by Rugby’s Greatest Championship, with the visit of Ireland next weekend already appearing over the horizon.
“It’s the first game of the Championship and then we’re playing the number two team in the world,” he said.
“Then we’re going away to a place where we haven’t won in 20 years, then we’re playing the number three team in the world, then we’re going to a place we haven’t won in – how long?
“Feet on the ground is good for us. We started with a solid win; five tries is a credit to the players, but we know next week’s challenge is huge. We have to get the focus right immediately.”
Young winger Kinghorn grabbed a first-half double, before completing Scotland’s first ever Guinness Six Nations hat-trick after the break.
With Stuart Hogg and Chris Harris also getting their names on the scoreboard, and Finn Russell dictating the play throughout, all seemed well in the Scotland camp.
And while a late trio of tries from Italy was cause for concern for skipper Greig Laidlaw, the 33-year-old believes his side showed that they can pose problems to any side.
“I really felt that we stepped it up in that middle part of the game, really took it away from Italy with our skillset and our work-rate, so we’re delighted with that,” he said.
“Coming into the Guinness Six Nations everybody was really focused all week. I was 100% confident that we were going to win today; we’d trained really well all week.
“Probably just physically at the end of the game we dropped off a little bit defensively, so we’ll need to tighten that up.
“We’re going to have to play for 80 minutes against the second-best team in the world, so that’ll heighten everybody’s senses and make sure we get that full performance which we’ll need to win the game.”
