Rugby: Townsend backs two captains

GREGOR TOWNSEND believes two heads are better than one as far as the Scotland captaincy is concerned.

Attack coach Townsend is fully behind head coach Andy Robinson's decision for Mike Blair and Chris Cusiter to share the armband for this month's autumn internationals.

The radical move, which will see whichever scrum-half is on the field at the time skippering the side, has raised eyebrows in some quarters.

But former Scotland captain Townsend agrees with Robinson that leadership needs to come from as many players as possible, saying: "It is a unique idea but one thing we're trying to do is create a learning environment and also give responsibility and empowerment to the players, so we need as many leaders as we can.

"We've got them in certain areas like attack, defence, set-piece, but to have two captains just adds to that, that we have someone on the field who's going to be the leader, someone off the field, and they can rely on each other to move the team forward."

Robinson unveiled his dual-captaincy model at this week's three-day training camp at St Andrews.