NECESSITY is the mother of invention, as they say, and rugby’s governing bodies certainly needed to invent something to compensate for their massive, pandemic-related financial losses. Hence the Nations Cup, which will see eight teams, Scotland included, compete across four successive weekends starting on Friday.

Yet while the Covid crisis has certainly concentrated minds, there has for some time been a groundswell of opinion in favour of something more meaningful than the traditional Autumn Tests, which, although attracting large crowds, have remained simply a series of friendlies. The Nations Cup, by contrast, is an actual tournament with a clear structure and a tangible prize. Playing four weeks in a row is a tough schedule at Test level, but let’s be honest, the more taxing a job for the players, the more compelling a spectacle it can be.

And the tournament promises to be all the more compelling for Scottish viewers because of the form Gregor Townsend’s team are in. Their victory in Llanelli eight days ago stretched their winning run to four in a row following results over Italy and France in the spring and Georgia a week before Wales. If they beat the Italians on Saturday then France eight days later they will have equalled their best runs, set in 1925-26 and 1989-90.

The improvement since the crushing disappointment of last year’s Rugby World Cup has been remarkable. In part it has been brought about by the adoption of a more pragmatic style in preference to the idealistic, “fastest rugby in the world” approach which was the national coach’s original aim. But it has also been caused by the rapid maturation of a core group of players such as Zander Fagerson, Scott Cummings and Jamie Ritchie, all of whom remain relatively young.

The loss of Finn Russell and Adam Hastings to injury is a serious blow, of course, even if Duncan Weir is a ready-made replacement for the two stand-offs. Nonetheless, Scotland are in confident mood as they go into a tournament which appears tailor-made to meet their coach’s aim of increasing the depth in his squad.

So is there a downside at all to this competition? Of course there is, and it stems from the very fact that created it in the first place: the Covid restrictions that continue to prevent crowds from being able to attend games.

“We’re lucky to be playing, but it would be nice if this tournament had crowds as well,” Townsend said. “If we had crowds, it might be a really good change to what we normally do. In November, even though they’re friendlies, you’re always getting two of the big Southern Hemisphere nations, with sell-out crowds. It feels more than just a series of friendlies.

“This is different because it’s a tournament. We’re travelling to Italy, then two home games and hopefully an away game on the finals weekend. Every team has to adapt to the fact there’s no crowds there – that’s the big change.”

The biggest change to the team to face Italy will almost certainly be the return of Weir as playmaker, but in that game and the three that follow Townsend is also confident that he can give opportunities to others both up front and in the back division while retaining a highly competitive team.

“Some of that will happen with injury, some will happen with players coming back from their injuries like Sam Johnson - I’d imagine we might see him over the next couple of weeks.

“We’d like to give players in that front five an opportunity if they’re worthy of it, and the guys coming off the bench have certainly made big impacts over the last couple of weeks. But we’ve got to make sure we’ve still got that cohesion from game to game and who we select for that game is appropriate to the opposition. It might be very different threats that Italy provide to that which Fiji provides, for example, so it might be different players that day.

“But one goal we have is to get through these four games with winning as our primary target but also having looked at a couple of players in each position. That’s already happening: 26 or 27 players have played in the first two games so that number’s going to go over 30. It might not be that everybody in our 35-man squad plays over the next four weeks but I’m sure we’ll get close to that number.”

Scotland disposed clinically of the Italians in Rome in February, winning 17-0, but Townsend expects his opponents to be wilier this time round.

“They’ve changed their game slightly," he said. "At the beginning of the Six Nations, they were moving the ball from deep a lot and were very ambitious. They still have that ambition within their game, but they’re looking to kick more.

“We know we’ll have to improve from Wales to beat them. They’ll see a game in Florence as an opportunity to get a good home win – they beat South Africa in the same stadium a few years ago.”

Mention of that 2016 result was a salutary reminder that Scotland can take nothing for granted on Saturday. Even so, with Weir set to slot seamlessly into place at 10 and a growing sense of self-belief throughout the ranks, the visitors will go into the game as firm favourites to extend their run of victories to five.