Nations Championship: Room for improvement but Scotland heading in the right direction

After the South Africa game, Rassie Erasmus said Scotland were the top three nations in the world, possibly behind his own team and France.

With Rasi you never know what kind of agenda might be behind her public comments – there usually is – but this was an eyebrow-raiser.

In terms of Fiji, Schoeman – two tries this summer – went down a similar road when asked if Scotland were closing the gap on the world’s best sides.

“No, I don’t think we’re closing the gap,” he said. “I think we’re the top three, top five teams in the world. We’ve proven that – Argentina away, France, England, we play (and beat) the top dogs.

“South Africa, Ireland, the All Blacks, we didn’t get a lot of love there. That’s maybe the games we want to look at going against the best. Just going toe-to-toe with them for a full 80-minute performance.”

The top-three is a big stretch, but there are moments in the game when you think Scotland have the ghosts of Ireland and New Zealand between them to rest.

They’ll crack on with the Kiwis in the autumn and play Ireland at Murrayfield in the spring.

As much as the Nations Championship has been a try-filled fun-fest, the real battle and barometer of progress remains the Six Nations.

Scotland is trending in the right direction but summer and autumn are always an unreliable guide to the true value of Scotland.

Enjoy some of their quality rugby over the past three weeks, but also put it in context. The Six Nations and the World Cup remain where they are.