[2025 Six Nations] England vs Scotland - 22/02/25

[higgik]

Nobody really set the world on fire today. Did anyone have a better game today than last time vs France.

I think Fin is in the driving seat at 10 for now. Mainly on the basis of England winning and I don't think England have won back to back games with Marcus at 10 since the world cup. (Could be wrong) and Marcus isn't to blame for those loses.

But when your club mate goes AWOL at SH, then it is difficult.
Mitchell was so playing to orders yesterday, he didn't even look up to see if there were any of his trademark sniping opportunities.

 

[higgik]

Even Freeman didn't get much joy in the air today.

That was because the Scots knew what was coming and set up so.
The actual area to attack was down the middle, as the Scots were willing to hold the width for the kicks as they knew what was coming.
Even during the phases for our try, the wings were on the touchline to stop the kick pass.
This is what frustrated me with Mitchell, at Saints he is known for sniping runs and good passing, yet, none of that happened yesterday.

 

[BPM]

Yep. It's like they pull on an England shirt and anything instinctive goes out of the window.

Also worth noting that our best attacking opportunities came through the middle and weren't pre-planned 'moves'*.

*Not sure you can really call 2 phases and a box kick a 'move'.

 

[BPM]

Moreover, there is a distinction between 'attack' and a break. The former requires structure, attention to detail and good execution, the latter is more reliant on individual skill.

By my definition, England did not really have attack yesterday.

What the heck are we paying an attack coach for?

 

[dgc47]

The way I saw it. Great game, England defended very well when they had to, Scotland lost out on poor kicking from Russell. The result showed that in the end.

Maybe I'm old fashioned but booing any player (Russell in this case), is bullshit.

 

[Vieux Talonneur]

On the plus side, the line out looked much better.

Who'd have thought an athletic 2.01 second jumper would help?

 

[spartan32]

A lot of focus on the negatives on the game from the England fans, and I can understand why. It did feel a bit like a hollow win. A bullet dodged rather than a victory created, but I'm not going to focus on that right now because I think it's been said and it doesn't really help. SB isn't going anywhere so that's that.

So the positives. Well we did win. Scotland had their chance and muffed it. We did some pretty decent defending for large parts of the game, winning crucial turnovers at critical points and relieving pressure. The scrum went pretty well and seemed to be pretty dominant. Good turnover count as well. Out lineout was ok but we didn't seem to be able to disrupt the Scott's lineout as much as I would have thought. There were some great flashes of what England can do with ball in hand. If we continue to work on that and gain the confidence to actually run the ball then things could start really looking good. I think the win today will help that. I'd imagine the first priority for the England set up at the moment is simply to brake the losing streak any way they can. Play safe percentages, lots of kicking and scrape out points when they come up. My hope is that if we can win the next two games and get into a rhythm of winning, then things will loosen up, players given more scope to play and we will see some of the skills we see in the prem week in week out, start leaching into the National team.

I still believe we have some great players, and the ability to field a side that can certainly go toe to toe with any team in the world. They just need to find their identity, style and cohesion. There's lots to be hopeful about. I really hope the next game is a little more champagne, and a little less last night la coffee!!

 

[BPM]

Generally I'm regarded as one of the more positive English posters, but honestly, I was embarrassed to win that game. I'd have been absolutely seething if the shoe had been on the other foot.

I'm sort of with @spartan32 at least on the closing paragraph. However, finding an 'identity, style and cohesion' that makes the most of our players is the head coach's job. I'm not convinced Borthwick has the ability to do that, even less so when he lacks the right supporting cast to challenge him or bring experience to the table.

 

[spartan32]

Generally I'm regarded as one of the more positive English posters, but honestly, I was embarrassed to win that game. I'd have been absolutely seething if the shoe had been on the other foot.

I'm sort of with @spartan32 at least on the closing paragraph. However, finding an 'identity, style and cohesion' that makes the most of our players is the head coach's job. I'm not convinced Borthwick has the ability to do that, even less so when he lacks the right supporting cast to challenge him or bring experience to the table.

Completely agree mate. SB doesn't seem to be the man for the job, especially with no proper supporting staff. If I'm being really generous it could be said that the new coaching joiners need time to settle in, and on that basis I give them the rest of the tournament, but if we see two more games like the one yesterday, win or no win, then SB needs to do the right thing, stand aside, and then we need to find a coaching team with some actual international pedigree. English rugby has been languishing for far too long.

 

[OllyM97]

Even though we won, I feel really flat today. Unlike Ireland last year and France when i was excited by how we played, even if we rode our luck against the French, I'm almost deflated by that performance yesterday. We barely had an attack worthy of the name and the areas of the game we did well in were all the negative ones. It feels a very hollow victory. What I was hoping for was for another step forward after France and to see further signs of the attack coming together. I was expecting us to come out of the traps full of confidence and really impose ourselves on Scotland and have the confidence to play. Instead we reverted back to 2023 and the early rounds of the 6N last year. We showed zero ambition, we didn't want to go through the phases and challenge Scotland, our ruck speed was pathetically slow - Mitchell's first instinct was to box kick the whole time. Defensively we were a shambles as well, we looked unfit and we had no intensity and just let Scotland play how they wanted to. We should have been at least 12 points behind at HT.

In the second half, I thought we actually showed a bit more ambition - nothing great, but at least something. However, our handling skills when we did go through a few phases were absolutely abysmal. I thought we got on top of them physically in the 2nd half but we couldn't convert the chances we had into tries. Again, I thought our mindset was so negative. The penalty that we got to go 13-10 up should have been kicked into the corner - you might say that the result justified the decision - no it didn't. Scotland were on a warning and I thought they were starting to look ragged. I think if we back ourselves there we either score a try or they get somebody binned. I thought we should have also gone for touch with the penalty on the halfway line a few minutes after. We had the chances to be ruthless and kill them off before the end - if you are less than 7 points up going into the last 5 minutes, I think you leave yourselves basically as hostages to fortune. Our negative mindset almost got what it deserved with the try at the end, it was a fantastic move from Scotland and the kind of creativity that we looked utterly devoid of. The kick was a very difficult one and you can't really blame Russell for missing it, had he got it, it would have been no less than Scotland deserved.

That was a step back from England yesterday despite the result. We're still way off where we should be.

 

[BrokenWing]

Apparently Scotland didn't lose because they missed three conversions. Although, if Finn had slotted the one that was a sitter…

 

[Jimbo]

Apparently Scotland didn't lose because they missed three conversions. Although, if Finn had slotted the one that was a sitter…

It's difficult to say with any certainty that if Russell had converted they would have won, it changes the complexion of the game and England have shown they can cut loose when the scoreboard requires it are just unwilling to even attempt it until in a deficit for some unknown reason, unless I'm miss remembering it's not like there were any missed kicks at the death which would have been impossible to over turn so kind of understand the hesitation to blame it solely in that, you would expect your 10 to nail most of those though.

 

[West Country Wail]

Does Borthwick have compromising pictures of Mitchell? It must take serious mental fortitude to avoid your natural playing style to that extent.

Was the plan to be SA because that's how SA beat Scotland?

I'm glad we won and the defensive sets are to be applauded but this team feels chained and misguided. A Golf GTI doing the school run.

 

[General Melchett]

It was a weird old game. Borthwick definitely lost the tactical battle but his team still won the game thanks to taking points when on offer and good defence in England's 22 to keep Scotland from building up a score. Scotland showed more invention and played better attacking rugby but just weren't quite clinical enough on the day particularly with the missed conversions from Russell (one of which gets nailed 9 times out of 10). Scotland's lack of quality on the bench meant that the pack just ran out of steam in the last 20 as I suspected might happen. Not going to moan about the try grounding/non grounding. England carved out the opportunity and gave the referee a decision to make. Scotland should have defended their 22 better.

Positives from a Scotland perspective are that we came very close without Tuipolotu, a first choice second row and a weakish bench. That first try was a thing of beauty. The main positive is that Borthwick will hopefully still be at the helm when the CC is up for grabs again next year and we have a near full strength squad and home advantage.

 

[BrokenWing]

Does Borthwick have compromising pictures of Mitchell? It must take serious mental fortitude to avoid your natural playing style to that extent.

It doesn't work that way does it.

If Mitchell doesn't do what Borthwick wants, he simply doesn't get picked.

I imagine that's motivation enough.

 

[BPM]

Watching England reminds me of when Gustard took over at Quins and tried to turn us into Saracens-lite. It doesn't suit the players we have and it doesn't work.

I'm not even against ugly rugby if it's the right tactic on the day. When it's done well (as we did in the RWC SF), it can be very effective. Should we be doing that against Scotland at home off the back of a decent win? Hell no.

 

[Flankers' paradise]

It's absolutely criminal that Smith the F should be in a position to have to attempt 20 tackles! Borethwick should take his spreadsheets to a call centre where he can analyse how much employees need to be taking calls each day although I imagine the queue lengths would be doubled thanks to half the staff trying to box kick their phones. We need a Matt Sherrat

 

[West Country Wail]

It doesn't work that way does it.

If Mitchell doesn't do what Borthwick wants, he simply doesn't get picked.

I imagine that's motivation enough.

Nope and it's rubbish isn't it.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

It's absolutely criminal that Smith the F should be in a position to have to attempt 20 tackles!

Tbf this could equally be Scotland targeting a young/inexperienced 10

 

[Crash Hamster]

Watching England reminds me of when Gustard took over at Quins and tried to turn us into Saracens-lite. It doesn't suit the players we have and it doesn't work.

I'm not even against ugly rugby if it's the right tactic on the day. When it's done well (as we did in the RWC SF), it can be very effective. Should we be doing that against Scotland at home off the back of a decent win? Hell no.

I've been on here over 1200 messages-worth now and it seems that we're back in the days of Eddie Jones again. We might as well have picked as many high-ball-chasing huge units as possible if we're going to kick the ball up in the air all the time.

What we have at the moment is a lot of mobile, ball-playing backs and should be looking to play a game which suits them.

we also seem to have a very promising tight 5 coming through from junior levels. Bolt some of those players on and we'll have a huge pack and talented backs in a few short years. This is what we should be building towards.

I'm done with Bostik. We can't expect to keep playing sides whose basic skills let them down at a critical moment and hand us the win.