Comment: ‘Two Jobs’ Townsend holds his nerve but Calcutta Cup masterclass a ‘damning indictment’ of this Scotland side
Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend and captain Sione Tuipulotu hold the Calcutta Cup.
They called him ‘Two Jobs’ Townsend and mocked him for botching the Italian Job after leaving out Scotland’s record try scorers.
They condemned his decision to take on additional work with Red Bull, owners of Newcastle, when he has yet to win a bean working ‘full time’ in his day job.
They called for his sacking when Argentina came from 21-0 down to win at Murrayfield in November with five tries in the last 24 minutes.
And they questioned his sanity in choosing to go into Six Nations battle without the combined 69-try firepower of Duhan van der Merwe and Darcy Graham.
Under pressure
Gregor Townsend arrived at Murrayfield for his 100th Test as Scotland head coach backed firmly into a corner.
Disrespected for seven consecutive defeats to top-10 ranked teams, which dropped Scotland to 10th in the world order, two places below Fiji.
Doubted for favouring club form and going all-in on Glasgow players, which also meant binning Blair Kinghorn, the Toulouse and British and Irish Lions star.
Ridiculed for presiding over a performance in Rome so lame Scotland failed to muster a single line break against a team winning a Six Nations match for only the 17th time in 26 years.
The clamour for Warriors boss Franco Smith to take over was so loud the man could hardly hear himself think.
Yet Townsend held his nerve and what followed, Scotland wiping the floor with the auld enemy on Saturday night, showed whatever else is missing, he has not lost the dressing room.
Scotland v England: Winners and losers as Calcutta Cup win ‘saves Gregor Townsend’s skin’ once again
“We got behind our coach this week and delivered a performance,” captain Sione Tuipulotu said after England had even fewer answers than their captain Maro Itoje in his post-match interview.
“There’s only so much the coach can do,” Finn Russell added. “It’s us that is out there. We’ve got to take ownership of what happens on the pitch. I think that’s what we did today.”
Scotland had their bonus point in 53 minutes and denied England even a losing one with a performance inspired by Townsend’s half-time demand that they “keep being aggressive, keep attacking”.
Yet what made their effort so special also condemned this group. For Scotland did what Scotland do in the fixture that matters above all to a land which still sings about beating the English at Bannockburn more than 700 years ago.
That is now five wins in six over England. The one that got away Steve Borthwick’s team nicked by a point with a try they did not ground and a last-gasp conversion Russell missed after the ref wrongly moved him out to the touchline.
Contrast that record with no wins in 11 against Ireland, one in six against France, one in three against Italy.
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In quarter of a century of Six Nations competition they have not won a Triple Crown let alone a championship. They have never finished better than third in a six-horse race.
To raise their game to the heights they did on Saturday yet so often get nowhere even close against other countries is a damning indictment.
“The very best sides,” former captain John Barclay said. “The drop-off isn’t as big.”
When praising the support of the Murrayfield crowd afterwards and saying “it’s great we can give them something to smile about now for the next 12 months”, Townsend inadvertently confirmed their Red Rose obsession.
Too much of Scotland’s passion and emotion is shoehorned into this one fixture. At the time it is wonderful to behold, but too many other performances are barren by comparison.
The deserved acclaim for the achievement of this weekend does not change the fact that this is a riddle Townsend must solve if the criticism of him and his players is to go away.
“They need to back it up and they know that,” Barclay told ITV. “Peaking for international Test matches it’s hard to get it emotionally right every single week. That’s what separates the best in the world.
“I look at last week, the first 20 minutes [against Italy] they weren’t emotionally right. You could tell. [This week] Gregor speaks about the first 20 minutes: the bravery, the aggression. the intent. It’s a completely different game.
“There’s something about this fixture undoubtedly, in this stadium and down at Twickenham also, we’ve seen from this Scottish side, but it’s a tricky one. Because those results against the other nations, it doesn’t stack up.”
Scotland the Brave won the 133rd Calcutta Cup. Unshackled by Townsend and inspired by Russell, they forwent structure and attacked space throughout. They dominated England in the air, pulling them first one way then the other.
It was Russell’s tip-on pass which put Huw Jones in for their opening try, his intelligent targeting of England’s left flank after Henry Arundell’s first yellow card which led the winger to commit a second offence and see red.
The Scottish forwards, so ineffectual in Rome, won four times the number of turnovers. The replacements won the battle of the bench.
England have serious questions to ask of themselves in the way they mis-managed the game. This was the biggest test of their credentials on the road since the start of their 12-win streak and they failed it badly.
Arundell’s double yellow rush of blood was costly enough, leaving them a man light for 30 minutes. Still, they had opportunity to get back into the contest in the third quarter only to be let down by a lack of composure.
Let it off the hook
On 20 occasions they coughed up the ball: Itoje, Ellis Genge and Alex Mitchell fumbling on separate occasions with the line at their mercy. They had Scotland’s scrum on toast and on a final warning yet chose to let it off the hook.
The decision to go for the corner rather than grind home their advantage after three scrum penalties was an act of folly. It did lead to a try, but at the other end, after George Ford’s drop goal was charged down by Matt Fagerson and Jones went the length.
In all, England made 12 visits to the home 22 yet came away with 11 points fewer than Scotland managed on eight incursions of their own.
It made for a memorable evening but one which will lose much of its meaning if Scotland fail to back it up in Wales next week.
“The message for us is keep going, keep building and be tough on ourselves,” said Russell.
Drop off again and there will be no shortage of folk ready to pile in on the final leg of that.
