On Tuesday afternoon, for the sixth and possibly final time, Gregor Townsend will name his squad for a Six Nations championship. We say final (potentially) because of all the speculation linking the Scotland coach with a move elsewhere once his contract expires after the World Cup in the autumn.

The chat is feverish (the Leicester link is growing all the time) and on Tuesday he will be asked about it all. Don't expect many answers. Does he want to stay? Does the SRU want him to stay? Are they talking to each other or just preparing for the afterlife?

Townsend will be grilled, but the chances of him giving anything away on that front are minimal. You won't be surprised to hear that he's focused on the Six Nations and the Six Nations alone. His future is not important. The team is everything. That dead thwack you might hear emanating from Murrayfield in early afternoon will be the sound of Townsend applying a straight bat to all questions about him staying or going.

These are crazy times in the world of international rugby. Warren Gatland has replaced Wayne Pivac in Wales, Steve Borthwick has replaced Eddie Jones in England who's replaced Dave Rennie in Australia who's being talked about as a replacement for Townsend if he exits later in the year.

There's blissful calm in all of places, France, the rugby nation that elevated behind-the-scenes chaos to an art form.

It tells you all you need to know about how upside down the rugby world is right now. When the French are looking stable and some others are in transition then something very weird is going on.

Townsend's time as a Six Nations coach is a case of what-might-have-been playing on a loop. He's won 12 out of 25 games which is just one fewer than England over the same five-season period (but England have a championship to their name), and only two down on Wales (who have a Grand Slam and a championship in the same time scale.)

He has never managed to get his team in the shake-up on the final weekend, their chance repeatedly destroyed by massive under-performances or maddening moments in otherwise tight games. In Townsend's time, Scotland have lost six games in the championship by seven points or fewer and drew a seventh when leading going into the 83rd minute.

It's only when you look back do you realise how head-wrecking some of them were. An awful decision made under pressure, a few ridiculous penalties given away at the wrong time, a try-scoring opportunity butchered, a sudden outbreak of soft mentality syndrome.

The principle of "tight margins" in elite sport is a cliché but that doesn't mean it's not true. It is. Scotland are the living embodiment of it. You half expect the ghost of Jim Bowen to jump out of a cupboard in the Scotland team room to tell the players "here's what you could have won had your penalty count not gone into outer-space when the heat came on".

So one last chance (maybe) for Townsend to do what no Scottish coach has ever done in the history of the Six Nations and that's put them in the hunt for the title on the final weekend.

Scotland's injury woes

It wouldn't be the Six Nations if it wasn't for injury worries, though. And boy does Townsend have them. Only Adam Hastings has been ruled out of the entire tournament, but there's a host of stellar operators who'll probably miss the early games: Darcy Graham, Hamish Watson, Rory Darge and, above all, Zander Fagerson.

Townsend will feel the loss of all of those guys, but Fagerson's absence (for however many match weeks it lasts) is the most costly. By the time he comes back and gets up to Six Nations intensity, Scotland's race may have already been run.

At tighthead, Townsend doesn't have anybody remotely in the same bracket as Fagerson in terms of carrying power. Murphy Walker is also carrying a knock, but he's untested in the most unforgiving terrain of Six Nations rugby. Beyond that, there's WP Nel, Simon Berghan and Javian Sebastian. Somehow, the cavalry have to hold the fort until the big man returns. England first and Wales second, both with new coaches on a restoration mission. That's a rough start.

This is the greatness of the Six Nations; the picture changes every year and a whole new vista appears. Will Sean Maitland, on form for Saracens, be brought back into the fold now that Graham is out? How many of Scotland's myriad centres will make it? Most, if not all, are flying.

Say a prayer for no late eruption in the Townsend-Finn Russell relationship. If Russell is first choice at 10 and Blair Kinghorn is second then who's the third man? The Fin Smith ship has sailed, so is it Tom Jordan who's improving fast with Glasgow or Ben Healy, soon to make his move from Munster to Edinburgh? Jordan has banged out some excellent performances and deserves the recognition.

Townsend might spring a surprise on Tuesday. It almost wouldn't be a Townsend announcement without a bolt from the blue. Whether this is his last time doing this or not is going to be a strong element in his press conference.

In the immediate term, though, it's not where Townsend is going, or not going, that's the biggest issue, it's where his team are going. North or south from last year? Hope or not heading into the World Cup? The story starts on Tuesday.

Scotland's 2022 Six Nations results

5 February, Scotland 20-17 England

12 February, Wales 20-17 Scotland

26 February, Scotland 17-36 France

12 March, Italy 22-33 Scotland

19 March, Ireland 26-5 Scotland