We must put on a Schoe against Italy as we gear up for World Cup

Pierre calls for Scotland to finish with a flourish

- GORDON PARKS

PIERRE SCHOEMAN insists Scotland don't need to go back to the Six Nations drawing board as their focus is on the bigger picture of a looming World Cup.

The dark blues prop believes the disappointment of having their title dream extinguished by back-toback defeats to France and Ireland has been a harsh education on where Gregor Townsend's side fell short.

With Saturday's clash against Italy at Murrayfield bringing down the curtain on this campaign, Schoeman is adamant ending on a high is a must and improving on the small details in time for the rugby extravaganza in France this autumn.

He said: "We can learn a lot from this now. We are in the same World Cup pool as Ireland and we are really looking forward to that game now.

"We need to take the learnings about making sure we are finishing tries.

"It's extremely important that we did that this weekend as Italy are hurting as well as they feel they could have done more damage. They are very passionate, especially away against Scotland.

"We have to be on it like never before in this Six Nations, we need to finish strong as third place isn't the best we would have wanted but we faced two teams who are in the top three in the world.

"If it's second or third place then we need to fight for that.