England head coach Steve Borthwick admitted his side had learned a “hard lesson” as they suffered a fourth successive defeat in the Calcutta Cup. It was Scotland’s best win against England since 1972 and Borthwick admitted his side’s mistakes sowed the seeds of their own defeat.
“We knew today wasn’t good enough,” Borthwick said. “When you make so many handling errors at this level it’s hard to win. Ultimately we made it too easy for them to score. They were very clinical but the important lesson for us was [conceding] So many mistakes made the game very difficult.
“Sometimes you make mistakes. Against a team like Scotland you don’t. Scotland’s No. 10, 12 and 13 have started a dozen times. This is the first time we’ve had 10, 12 and 13 Starting together, that’s what it looked like. There was a lack of cohesion in what they were doing and there were too many fundamental mistakes. I don’t think the team maximized its potential today. We all hope that progress will be on a good linear path, but Ultimately, that was not the case.”
Borthwick’s side must now beat championship leaders Ireland at Twickenham or France in Lyon to avoid a fourth consecutive Six Nations title with just two wins in five games . However, England captain Jamie George believes his side are capable of performing better in their final two games. “Hopefully the fans saw in the first 20 minutes the way we wanted to play. The question now is how do we support that.
“I had no problem with the way we played in the first half, but then we got a little loose. We got the ball to Finn Russell, [Duhan] van der Merwe…they could create magic, and they did. I think the fundamentals are good, but we need to execute the game plan better. We knew it would be difficult to get here, but we weren’t good enough. Test match rugby can be brutal. We saw this today. “
Instead, Scotland now look more likely to challenge unbeaten Ireland. They still have games to play against Italy and Ireland, and their manager Gregor Townsend believes his side beat England without performing at their best. “For 15 minutes, we didn’t play well at all,” Townsend said. “But it’s great that we won. To score 30 points in this game is a testament to the quality of this team. The threats we faced on the outside really put pressure on the team; they can’t just focus on us. Midfield. It’s also good not to let them lose points.”
At the same time, Townsend believes improvements still need to be made in new mouthguard technology designed to measure potentially hazardous impacts in the field. Scotland’s Zander Fagerson had to be temporarily substituted early in the game after Townsend thought it was just a “normal tackle”, while hooker Georges was caught against France earlier this month. A similar incident occurred with George Turner.
“We really have to pay attention to what we do here,” Townsend said. “You don’t want to take your best players off the pitch for 10 minutes. You want to protect the players but there’s a lot of work to do before the technique is right. This is new in the Six Nations… I hope they learn from today’s incident and make sure [the readings] As close to accurate as possible. We need to do more work on this. “
