Five takeaways from England v Scotland
Scotland's Finn Russell and Stuart Hogg (right) with the Calcutta Cup after the Guinness Six Nations match at Twickenham Stadium, London. Picture date: Saturday February 6, 2021.
Following an 11-6 victory for Scotland over England in their Six Nations game, here’s our five takeaways from the fixture at Twickenham.
History repeats
The rugby gods like nothing more than a little fun at the pundits’ expense and today, in the 150th Calcutta cup match, Scotland recorded their first win in 38 years as they shut England out in a memorable performance to win 11-6. The Scots came with focus, purpose and with an incredible display of control from every area of the pitch. There wasn’t one single aspect of the game where England were superior, and to a man, the Scotland players beat their opposite number from one to 15. With Stuart Hogg producing a masterclass of variety, intelligence and even filling in at fly-half for 10 minutes, Scotland never looked in danger of losing control of the game. He’ll be smiling tonight as he becomes the first Scottish skipper to pick up the Calcutta Cup at Twickenham since Jim Aitken in 1983. Tonight, the Cabbage Patch is Scotland’s.
England repeat
To watch every criticism that’s been made of England over the last year come home to roost gives few people any pleasure. However, the simple truism here is that this was absolutely predictable and it’s quite astonishing to watch the complete lack of control, rugby intelligence and on-field decisioning that England displayed. It’s a statistical fact that England have never come back to win a game with Owen Farrell at 10 when they’ve been behind after 20 minutes. He looked like a player without form, without ideas, without to ability to change the course of the game.
It was beyond anyone’s comprehension at the ground that it took 71 minutes to send George Ford and even in that short time, he looked a different class to the stodge of Farrell. Elsewhere, the back three offered nothing whatsoever. The continued selection of the woefully out of form Anthony Watson and Elliot Daly has become quite farcical when there’s talent like Paolo Odogwu and Max Malins available, fit and firing. Witnessing the lack of control shown by England’s backs in this game was concerning, to say the least.
Wrong numbers
Scotland beat England fair and square in every single statistical aspect of the game. Missed tackles? England 27, Scotland eight. Metres made? England 358, Scotland 540. Carries? England 66, Scotland 128. Penalties? 15 versus six. Looking at those in raw data form are bad enough, but to watch a nation with two pro teams only and player base of less than 100 professionals beat up a nation with 13 teams and some 500 players to choose from was, for any Englishman, embarrassing.
🏆 How good does that look, Scotland fans? #GuinnessSixNations #ENGvSCO pic.twitter.com/u7EKXa4Hqk
— Planet Rugby (@PlanetRugby) February 6, 2021
Scotland targeted England’s two jumpers in the lineout, using four athletic options to make numerical mismatches and, bluntly, cleaned England out. The scrum, despite referee Andrew Brace’s obvious errors, was won game, set and match by the Scots and in contact, the story was pretty much the same, as the visitors absolutely bossed the game line all day. However, again, England were smashed in terms of emotional intensity; yet again, they failed to rise to a challenge in front of them and, as with South Africa in 2019 and France in 2020, when sides play with passion against them, they were found severely wanting.
Lions watch
Based solely on today, some big markers were thrown down by the Scots in terms of Lions head-to-heads. Without question, their entire front-row came off victors, with their back-row, and particularly Matt Fagerson, who was outstanding in the carry and crucial in setting up the position for the first try, achieving rare dominance against the English trio.
In the backline, Duhan van der Merwe continued his rise to the top with a brilliant display in both attack and in defensive clearing, whilst Hogg reminded us all that he’s got a lot of unfinished business in a British and Irish Lions shirt. Cameron Redpath, too, was rock solid in midfield defence and put in 21 tackles of surety and power and, whilst Finn Russell will want to forget his clumsy trip, the rest of his game was assured and effective.
The only glimpses of light for England were the sheer brilliance of Maro Itoje around the ruck where he made a menace of himself all day, putting immense pressure on Ali Price’s clearing kicks, and a couple of cameos from Luke Cowan-Dickie and Ben Earl, neither of whom had enough time to assert any influence on the game.
Plateaued
Planet Rugby asked the question in the Six Nations’ previews if England had plateaued? Based on today’s showing they’ve not only plateaued, but gone backwards and, unless there’s some change in thinking, tactics and selections, there’s a good chance that this trend will continue as England keep making the same errors. Eddie Jones risked picking five Saracens players who’ve had precisely 80 minutes of rugby between them in three months. It was an absolute misjudgement and one that cost him dearly. He again jettisoned the fly-half that’s proven time and time again that he’s the best playmaker England have available in the squad.
He refuses to embrace either the form in the premiership or the style of England’s top clubs, slavishly sticking to myopic predictability of crash, kick and chase when the only thing that is predictable is that those tactics don’t work against the best sides. To cap it all, the reaction to the game pattern unfolding was slow; it was obvious to all that England had no penetration, yet he waited until the 65th minute to unload the likes of Dan Robson and Earl to change the game. England are teetering on the brink, make no mistake about that, but tonight is Scotland’s night, and if both sides continue on their current trajectories, England will soon be able to wave at their visitors as they pass each other, one going up, one going down.