Scotland coach Gregor Townsend refused to be drawn about counterpart Eddie Jones saying his England side will be "going after" Scotland on Saturday.

England coach Jones has been quoted as saying "we're going up there to get them" in the opening weekend of the Six Nations at Murrayfield.

"It's good to hear they will be competitive - that's what we want," Townsend told BBC Scotland.

Indeed, Scotland's head coach sees "keeping the emotions in check" as one of his main tasks before matches against traditionally their biggest rivals.

"I've learned through experience that, when we have built up emotions too high, maybe the accuracy hasn't been there, so I'm sure we won't be building it up that much," he explains.

"Having an opening game as big as the Calcutta Cup will certainly focus our minds and being at home should help.

"If it brings out the best in us then that's brilliant, but England will be a handful as they were excellent in the autumn and they know we beat them in the opening game last year, so they will be fired up from the start."

Townsend knows the importance of a winning start given Scotland play three of their five games away from home this campaign and he believes that, "on paper, it's going to be one of the most competitive Six Nations ever".

"The form of the northern hemisphere teams has been there now for a number of years and the November Tests confirmed that with Ireland beating New Zealand, England beating South Africa and Australia and Wales beating Australia," he says.

"But that becomes irrelevant coming into this tournament, although it's great that our tournament has some of the leading teams in the world in it because it wasn't always the case 20 years ago."

Scotland had a number of their squad involved in weekend club fixtures and Townsend reports that he expects most to have come through unscathed apart from one player whose injury has yet to be assessed.

Centre Cameron Redpath made his third appearance, in Bath's 21-17 win over Harlequins, since the knee injury he picked up in May and Townsend says the 22-year-old is in the running to earn only his second cap.

"He is definitely in the mix - inside centre will be one position that requires a lot of discussion," he adds. "I thought Cam played very well at the weekend.

"We are delighted with the squad we have and we are in a good place going into this championship."