Scotland v England: Finn Russell and Duhan van der Merwe capitalise on Red Rose errors as Calcutta Cup streak continues

Following a 30-21 victory for Scotland over England that saw them retain the Calcutta Cup, here’s our five takeaways from the Six Nations game at Murrayfield.

The top line

Scotland extended their winning streak in the Calcutta Cup to four in a row as they overcame the Auld Enemy in a thrilling and unstructured match at Murrayfield.

A Duhan van der Merwe hat-trick grabbed the headlines as the British and Irish Lions wing ran 113 metres from just five carries as Scotland relied upon counterpunching against a massively powerful but error strewn display from the visitors.

With Finn Russell owning the scoreboard and nailing his kicks to continue his 100% record in this year’s Six Nations, the maturity of the Scottish skipper cannot be understated, something that his charges echoed as they grew into the match.

The game started with a bang as George Furbank went flying over in one of England‘s best first-phase moves in a long time as Elliot Daly came into the line to make the extra man and to deliver a lovely offload for Furbank’s maiden Test try.

But these days Scotland are a side that know they need to live up to their enormous potential and slowly but surely their better detail and their cohesion under pressure started to overcome England’s almost boyish and clumsy enthusiasm, taking them to a win they fully deserved.

Put simply, today’s victory, whilst not unexpected, was an absolutely vital steppingstone as they look to deliver on the talent they so clearly have, especially given the shaky performances they delivered against both Wales and France in previous rounds.

Errors or resilience?

Was it the litany of English errors or the emotional and intellectual resilience of Scotland at the heart of this result? In truth it was a little bit of both, but more so it was the mental steel of the Scots that has grown through so many close results in recent years that gave the hosts the mental reference points to know how to scrape a result out of this match.

Scotland only had five visits into the England 22 during the first 60 minutes but those visits yielded three tries and two penalties, an incredibly efficient return on their attacking industry. When you have players like Van der Merwe in your backline you know there is the ability to finish almost at will, but given yet another missed tackle by Henry Slade for the first try and the knock-on that allowed Van der Merwe to create the second that message clearly hadn’t been communicated to the England team.

However, to blame English errors wholly is missing the brilliance of Russell and his game management at fly-half. His exit, control and territorial intellect were a large part of the reasons that the England handling (19 errors) fell apart under immense pressure and yet again the Bath 10 demonstrated just how far he is developing into a complete and assured fly-half.

Defence not settled

Whilst the England defence created a lot of chaos in the Scottish backline it also served to deconstruct the game, something that, given Scotland’s running ability, was always going to benefit the hosts. The system might be a talking point to many and at times it looks impressive, but the detail and cohesion in their game is hugely lacking at the moment.

To rush at the speed they do leaves them able to defend only north to south due to their own momentum and that speed into the tackle area allowed the Scottish backs to step and pass out of the onrushing tackler. In short, England are rushing with such commitment they’re unable to adjust to anything that the opposition do with ball in hand, something that happened on at least three occasions, one of which led to the first Van der Merwe try.

Scotland player ratings: Hat-trick hero Duhan van der Merwe breaks England hearts… again

On the upside at times the English breakdown went well; Sam Underhill grabbed three steals and the direct clearing was a lot more dynamic and accurate than we’ve seen in recent times, although a lot of that was down to the sheer number of players that England were prepared to throw in. But given the riches available to Steve Borthwick in terms of player stocks in the Premiership you would also have expected a lot more in terms of set-piece leverage than England managed to achieve.

All in all, it all points to a side in the process of rebuilding – it shows promise, it has ambition but the detail, concentration and execution is letting that promise down and those qualities must be found sooner rather than later.

Muddled thinking

There’s also a question of muddled thinking in both selection and attack.

After ripping Scotland apart with fast hands and accurate passing in a pacy back division for the first try, England went back to one-out runners off nine and 10, using Ellis Genge as a proxy battering ram at outside-half and completely ignoring the tactics that had given them success in those opening plays.

To compound matters, there’s no doubt that Borthwick is picking the form players in the Premiership but what he isn’t doing is picking the form combinations that can have the best chance of success. A case in point has been his policy to mix and match form Saints players with others but never playing a whole combination, such as Alex Mitchell and Fin Smith, or Tommy Freeman and Fraser Dingwall, at the same time.

When going through this rebuilding process, familiarity and team units can get you a long way forward but Borthwick’s natural loyalty to players like George Ford and others are almost hampering a complete overhaul of England’s attacking ambitions.

But, on the flip side, the impact of some of the replacements, notably Immanuel Feyi-Waboso, Chandler Cunningham-South and the behemoth George Martin (his knock-on aside) will perhaps convince the England management that with two dead rubber games to go that this is now the time for that overhaul. With Smith immediately settling into the 10 berth it’s time for England to give their talent the best opportunity of success and it will be interesting to see how many changes Borthwick is prepared to make for the visit of Ireland in a fortnight’s time.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Hat-trick try for Duhan van der Merwe! #GuinnessM6N #SCOvENG pic.twitter.com/fp11cBkBI0

— Planet Rugby (@PlanetRugby) February 24, 2024

Scotland’s journey

In terms of work-ons, Scotland might be concerned about how they coped early doors with the breakdown and defence pressure, but the manner in which they grew into the match will give them great comfort as they move into the next round with a trip to Rome to face an Italian side with plenty of attacking potential but perhaps a lack of grunt up front.

The message will be about dominating possession early and starting hot enough to take pressure off themselves towards the end of the match, something that’s happened to them three times this season where their own on and off moments have caused them to lose one match and almost lose another.

That relies upon playing pragmatic rugby at the other end of the pitch and to achieve that, more use of Ben White’s clearing and some more committed chasing is the order of the day. Against England, their opponents got a lot of success in the first half by chasing contestables with the aim of knocking the ball back and controlling the drop zone; Scotland reacted well towards the end of the match by throwing in two men either side of the challenging catchers to sweep up the bobbling ball but it took them some 50 minutes to work this out, time that might not be available against better sides than England.

But the big message is that Scotland are still heading in the right trajectory; they showed much greater cohesion and detail than England did in this match and it was those qualities, together with their new found self belief that allowed them to record yet another crushing and famous victory in the Calcutta Cup.

READ MORE: England player ratings: Playmakers struggle as shambolic attack lets Red Rose down again