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If you were the kind of rugby fan who measured a coach's performance by the progress their team has made – and frankly why wouldn't you be? – then you might be asking yourself why it is that England and Wales have just parted company with their head coaches and Scotland have not?

Eddie Jones and Wayne Pivac were both jettisoned this week having won two of the last three Six Nations championships between them, a period during which Scotland racked up successive fourth-placed finishes.

There have been plenty of car crash moments for Jones and Pivac since, of course, but if you were to take the dim view that the RFU and WRFU have done of the respective jobs carried out by both men over the course of their tenures then you would be left with the inescapable conclusion that they have performed considerably better than Gregor Townsend in their roles.

If that seems a harsh assessment of Townsend's reign then it perhaps requires a degree of context. Jones and Pivac have paid the price for a miserable 2022 – in particular their fetid autumn international series displays – but it was not exactly a campaign full of roses for Scotland, either. In the same four-match spell, they posted a 50% win record; one of those victories came in laboured fashion against Fiji, the other in a rampant thrashing of Argentina. There was a miserable defeat at the hands of a poor Australia and a much more uplifting reverse at the hands of New Zealand.

Of these performances, it was undoubtedly those against the Pumas and the All Blacks which were the most impressive: the common denominator in those games was a dominant performance by Finn Russell, who had previously been excluded from the Scotland squad by Townsend apparently due to a drop in form. However, what was abundantly clear to anyone who has followed the relationship between the two men over the past couple of years is that the Racing 92 stand-off's absence came down to a personality clash between coach and player. In short, Russell's displays saved Townsend's hide this autumn.

Not that SRU chief executive Mark Dodson would have necessarily acted by removing Townsend. The party line in rugby has often been to state that you do not change a coach in a World Cup year but that has been torpedoed by the bold move taken by England and Wales in dispensing with Jones and Pivac nine months out from the global jamboree. Of course, that particular train of thought had already lost some of its currency when Rassie Erasmus guided South Africa to the Webb Ellis trophy a year after succeeding Allister Coetzee. In this era of fast-altering coaching landscapes it seems like a feeble excuse (not least when one accounts for the Six Nations won by Jones just months after taking the England reins).

Scotland have it all to do in France next year. By dint of their poor standing in the world rankings in 2020 they have been handed a draw which places them in a pool containing Ireland, the No.1 side in the world, and South Africa, the current world champions. As unfair and ludicrous as the seeding system that brought that scenario about is, each team knew their lot going into the process.

With changes in stewardship occurring elsewhere, it is only likely to intensify the glare on Townsend. Jones's time in charge was undeniably full of highs and lows. But let's assess those highs: he won three Six Nations championships during a seven-year reign and took England to the most recent World Cup final. Pivac, meanwhile, earned his right to coach Wales on the back of his efforts with Scarlets, a team with whom he won a Pro 12 title. If that sounds similar to the pathway Townsend took to the Scotland job, there is one notable difference in the legacy Pivac leaves as he vacates the Wales job after three years in charge. Like Jones, he too managed to bag a Six Nations title. In five years, Townsend has no such achievement to point to – indeed his best finish has been third, in his first season as Scotland coach.

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