Gregor Townsend insists Scotland can recover from their World Cup heartache – but knows they must learn from the mistakes that cost them in Japan.

The Dark Blues crashed out at the pool stage for only the second time in the competition’s history after a 28-21 loss to the hosts in Yokohama.

It was a another painful conclusion to a campaign that got off to a dismal start with the 27-3 thrashing from Ireland.

“The boys put in a tremendous shift in the second half, but we didn’t do enough in that last 20 minutes to get the win.

“It’s a huge blow not to reach the knock-out stages, we came here with high aspirations.

“Getting out of the pool stages was the first part of that.

“We have worked incredibly hard over the last few months so we are all hugely disappointed.”