Winger Darcy Graham scored four tries among his country’s 12 as Scotland maintained their hopes of reaching the knockout stage of the Rugby World Cup by thrashing Romania 84-0.
Scotland sits third in Pool B after the bonus-point win and heads to Paris to face the world’s top-ranked team Ireland next Saturday.
Flanker Hamish Watson opened the scoring after a delicate Cameron Redpath off-load and Irish-born fly-half Ben Healy kicked the touchline conversion to make it 7-0 after 10 minutes, setting the tone for a Scotland stroll.
The advantage was stretched to 21-0 by the half-hour mark as lively Graham set up influential Ali Price before the scrum-half repaid the favour for his winger.
Scotland comfortably led 42-0 at the interval as the omnipresent 26-year-old Graham claimed two further tries, and the crucial bonus point, either side of No. 8 Matt Fagerson crashing over, for Scotland’s biggest-ever half-time advantage.
Things were made even harder for the “Oaks”, who had conceded more than 300 points across their previous five internationals, as hooker Robert Irimescu, flanker Florian Rosu and full-back Marius Simionescu were shown yellow cards before the interval.
Townsend’s side continued to dominate even with Romania back up to 15 players, as centre Chris Harris, full-back Ollie Smith and Healy scored to make it 63-0 after an hour.
Despite trailing heavily, Romania attempted to avoid a whitewash but failed with their attempts to breach the Scotland line before debutant hooker Johnny Matthews, back-rower Rory Darge and Graham with his fourth try of the match, rubbed salt late on into their opponents’ wounds by scoring in the final 10 minutes.
