McInally warns against complacency ahead of Six Nations opener

Scotland stand no chance of ending their long wait for Guinness Six Nations glory if they do not take care of Italy in Saturday's championship opener, hooker Stuart McInally has warned.

Having won three games in each of the last two tournament editions, the challenge for Gregor Townsend's side is to go at least one better and put themselves into title contention.

The Azzurri are first up at BT Murrayfield and will be expected to pose little trouble to the ambitious Scots.

The Dark Blues have won their last six meetings and it would be understandable if some in Townsend's squad allowed their minds to wander past Conor O'Shea's side and onto their showdown with an Ireland side ranked second in the world the weekend after.

Such complacency, however, could risk a repeat of the Italians' 2015 win in Edinburgh and McInally knows the consequences would be disastrous.

"It's exciting that we get to start the championship at home," said the hooker. "But we're not taking it lightly – we know we'll need to be at our best.

"There's no chance of minds wandering to the Ireland game. It's all on this game because if we don't get this right we don't stand a chance for the rest of the tournament.

"You can't look past week one and that's something Greig (Laidlaw, captain) and Gregor have spoken about a lot this week. We're playing Italy and that's all we're thinking about."

Fraser Brown could make a surprise return to the bench this week after shrugging off a knee injury that had been expected to rule him out of the opening two rounds of the competition.

But if the Glasgow hooker fails to recover in time and is confined to the treatment room alongside Warriors team-mate George Turner, it would leave Townsend with only Edinburgh forward McInally as the only campaigner with previous international experience available to plug the middle slot of his front row.

Three rookies – Edinburgh's David Cherry, Leicester's Jake Kerr and Grant
Stewart of Glasgow – have been called up to provide cover but McInally has vowed he is willing to go the distance and play 80 minutes against Italy if required.

Asked if he had been wrapped up in cotton wool since joining up with the rest of the national team squad last week, he said: "No I've not. I've been flung into training. I've enjoyed it and the other hookers we've got, Jake, David and Grant, have been all been training well too.

"I feel in really good shape. I've been playing a lot for Edinburgh, putting in a few 70-minute performances and I feel I could play for however long the coaches want me to play.

"It's obviously quite an attritional position that I play. I do tend to get a point where I'm really tired all the time but can maintain a level of fatigue.

"The boys always take the mick out of me because I always look really tired on the pitch.

"But I can still get through my work – I just look knackered. I can handle it though.

"However, if the other boys have to come on they can definitely handle it. I've worked with David at Edinburgh and he's an excellent player, very good set-piece wise and also around the pitch.

"Jake from what I've seen over these past two weeks is very capable of playing at this level. He's a good operator, very skilful and seems quite physical too.

"Grant has been around the Scotland set-up before and has played well for Glasgow, so all these guys could step in no problem."