He remained with the club for a further two seasons in the top English division before moving to France to play for Brive in the French Rugby Union Championship.
After retiring from international rugby in 2003, in December of that year Townsend signed with Super 12 South African side the Sharks.
[8] In 2005, Townsend returned home to Scotland for a second time and was a player/coach for the Border Reivers until they were disbanded at the end of the 2006–07 season.
Townsend made his international debut at the age of 19, coming off the bench against England on 6 March 1993 during the 1993 Five Nations Championship.
It wasn't until a year later that Townsend gained his second cap, which was a starting position against Wales during the 1994 Five Nations Championship.
[15] This is the nickname given to the reverse pass which Townsend gave to Gavin Hastings for Scotland to register a dramatic and famous last-minute 23–21 victory against France in Paris in 1995.
After the club disbanded in 2007, he started a Scotland mentoring program in which a number of former internationals gave specialized coaching to rising Scottish players.
In October 2008, Townsend was appointed as assistant coach for the Scotland A national side ahead of their matches in later that year.
He was their attack coach during the 2011 Rugby World Cup where Scotland failed to advance past the pool stage.
In March 2012, Townsend stood down from his role with the national team and replaced Sean Lineen at Glasgow Warriors as their head coach.
The 2016–17 season would be Townsend's last at Glasgow, with the announcement of him taking charge of the Scottish national side in June 2017, replacing Vern Cotter when his contract expired.
Townsend took over the head coach role for the Scotland national rugby team when the Warriors season finished in May 2017.
Had it not been for a try saving tackle in the dying seconds of the game from Beauden Barrett, the score could have been equalized ahead of a potential match winning conversion.
In the final round, it came down to a last minute penalty from Greig Laidlaw to secure a 29–27 win over Italy, to finish third on the table, their highest positioning since 2013.
Townsend's second Six Nations campaign started well with a convincing win over Italy by 33–20, with a hat-trick from Blair Kinghorn alongside tries to Stuart Hogg and Chris Harris.
Scotland dominated the game until a surprising fight-back by Italy in the last 10 minutes[22] saw the Azzurri score three times to set up a tense finish.
The first half was almost entirely one-sided, with England racing out to a 31–0 lead in the first 30 minutes, until Stuart McInally scored a breakaway try off a charge-down from English captain Owen Farrell.
The second half witnessed a stunning comeback by the Scots, with a flurry of tries to Darcy Graham, Magnus Bradbury, Finn Russell and Sam Johnson putting Scotland into the lead by 38–31 with 4 minutes to go before a last-gasp try to replacement English fly-half George Ford, who then converted to level the final score at 38-38.