again.
Nothing as delusional as a Jock supporter after the team has won a game, so after winning two they were confident of victory over England at Twickenham.
The Jocks marauded south, believing that now they would finally return home victorious from Twickenham, the first time in 34 years, only the fifth time ever. They’d won a couple of games in the Six Nations and had lost the plucky loser tag.
Well they certainly weren’t plucky losers on Saturday, hell you could say they were lucky. Lucky that the refs, on-field and on telly bottled it and didn’t want to send a player off inside the first couple of minutes. Their hooker, Brown, should have seen red on his tackle that put Daly out of the game but was shown just a yellow. Down to 14 for 80 minutes plus, they might have conceded more points than the Calcutta Cup record 61 that England put on them.
Added to the fact they probably wouldn’t have scored the three tries that kept the winning margin down to the record Calcutta Cup gap of 40 points.
They probably wouldn’t have scored those points if George Ford hadn’t flounced those tackles. It was the one downside to England’s best performance of this tournament – though that wasn’t hard to do – and it’s glossed over but against a better team than Scotland Ford will be the weak link. You don’t think New Zealand or even Ireland have looked at the Jock’s first try and the way Ford goes in high and just bounces off people.
Everything that England did so badly in the previous two games they did that much better here. Two weeks of Eddie Jones giving them a snarling did the trick after the Italy debacle. The points they should have put on the Italians were put on the Jocks, as they were “taken to the cleaners”.
Which in a way is so much more satisfactory. Doing it to Italy would have been a bit meaningless, doing it to the Auld Enemy well it’s far better, seeing their poor wee destroyed faces. Maro Itoje adding another long lived Calcutta Cup memory when he patted the Jock captain’s head, bless. OK so it’s not up there with Gavin Hastings crying his eyes on on telly after but with them – players, ex-players and fans – so full of themselves before hand it was a nice little know your place moment.
Itoje was doing all the things that Robshaw does and goes unnoticed, except the old captain doesn’t generally take the line out ball so sweetly to start the moves for those first three tries. Down, pretend you’re going for the rolling maul and then off through the backs. Well not all, stopping at Joseph so he can charge through the deer in the headlights to finish it.
Poor Nowell, England playing on the front foot, getting the ball wide and it’s all over before the ball can even get to him. Though his tackling stopped some dangerous situations. *cough* George *cough*
Rattled Scotland looking for a fight just got smiles, maybe a bit of pushing, but generally smiles and no reaction. England for once played smart and didn’t give away a stream of stupid penalties. Especially not penalties leading to points straight after scoring. Looking at you Dan.
And the kicks went over, even with a dodgy leg, Farrell only missed the one and that was a bit of a Hail Mary from the halfway line just at the end of the first half.
I do like the fact that England kept going for it, with the clock red they could have just kicked the ball dead and walked off with the Calcutta Cup and the Six Nations title but no, I was screaming for the 60 points, they got ’em. Keep your foot on their throat.
The Jocks came to Twickenham thinking the could win the title, if Italy pull their finger out they could finish second bottom. Plucky.
They could finish second top. England will be top but that doesn’t matter, beating Ireland is the only thing that matters now. Keeping that winning streak going to a world record 19 and getting that second Grand Slam in a row.
England got away with it for those first three games then found their style again, think no matter how bad Ireland have been – hell they’re almost one dimensional – England will have to play with this intensity and intelligence to do the job. The Italy game was the kick up the arse they needed for the Scotland performance, Jones won’t let them rest on their laurels after that.