Hat-trick may not be enough to retain Scotland place, says Blair Kinghorn

But with Maitland battling to shake off the hamstring strain that kept him out of the 33-20 triumph over the Azzurri at Murrayfield, Kinghorn is not taking it for granted that he will be given the nod by Townsend to face an Irish outfit ranked number two in the world when they visit Edinburgh next Saturday.

Kinghorn said: "It was awesome to score three times. I'm over the moon.

"To score any try is brilliant. I was just lucky to be on the receiving end of some great passing and a great kick from Finn Russell.

"Is the jersey mine to keep now? No, not at all. It goes week by week. You just have to train hard week by week and if you get selected put your best foot forward.

"It's cool to have my name up on Scotland's list of hat-trick scorers though. It's nice to be named among them. But I'm mainly just over the moon with the result."

Townsend spoke to his team earlier this week about the need to build early momentum if they wanted to make a run for the title and Scotland were quick out of the blocks.

Playmaker Russell created the opener when he booted the ball straight into Kinghorn's grasp for the opener after 12 minutes.

The make-shift winger had more to do for his second nine minutes later as Stuart Hogg's sloppy pass landed at his feet but the pick-up and finish was impeccable.

Scotland took their foot off the gas for the rest of the first half but they were motoring once the second period got under way as Hogg got the faintest of touches to a Russell grubber to add try number three.

Kinghorn wrapped up his treble and the bonus point after a brilliant run by Jamie Ritchie carved Italy apart, while substitute Chris Harris climbed off the bench to score his maiden Test try.

Some of the shine, however, was taken from Scotland's win as they allowed Guglielmo Palazzani, Edoardo Padovani and Angelo Esposito to score three tries in a sloppy final 10 minutes after Simon Berghan had been sin-binned.

And Townsend insists there is no chance of his men getting carried away with their triumph.

He said:  "Perhaps it's not a bad thing we are now coming up against the second best team in the world, so it's feet on the ground and that's good for us. We have started with a solid win and scoring five tries is a credit to the players.

"The challenge next week will be huge and we'll understand what we have to do better next week.

"We face the second best team in the world before going away to France, where we haven't won for 20 years. But I'm not too concerned.

"We were a man down, their passes began to stick and perhaps we weren't smart enough in that last 10. We didn't react to that quickly enough and that's disappointing.

"Blair took his tries superbly. He adds to our depth and it makes selection next week that bit harder."

Italy have now lost 18 Six Nations games in a row but head coach Conor O'Shea said: "I want to have success for these guys because they give so much and we're doing everything we can to put in the foundations for a great future."

ga('create', 'UA-72310761-1', 'auto', {'name': 'pacontentapi'});
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'referrer', location.origin);
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension1', 'By Andy Newport, Press Association Sport');
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension2', 'f25975fb-e28a-4041-b89b-a3c7aa5adcca');
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension3', 'paservice:sport,paservice:sport:uk,paservice:sport:world');
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension6', 'story');
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension7', 'composite');
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension8', null);
ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension9', 'sport:rugby-union');
ga('pacontentapi.send', 'pageview', { 'location': location.href, 'page': (location.pathname + location.search + location.hash), 'title': 'Hat-trick may not be enough to retain Scotland place, says Blair Kinghorn'});