The Calcutta Cup Saturday 5 Feb 2022

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Scotland vs England

BT Murrayfield, Edinburgh
Saturday 5th of February 2022
Kick Off 4:45pm

What the Coaches are saying

Gregor Townsend - "The players have been in outstanding form for their respective clubs.. and that is outstanding!" *tongue click*

Eddie Jones - "There are some young players getting an opportunity. They just need to make sure they don't get distracted or else they might not do so well."

Scotland Team

1. Sutherland 2. Turner 3. Z Fagerson
4. J Gray 5. Gilchrist
6. Ritchie 7. Watson 8. M Fagerson.
9. Price 10. Russell
12. Johnson 13. Harris
11. Van der Merwe 14. Graham
15. Hogg

Replacements: McInally, Schoeman, Nel, Skinner, M Bradbury, White, Kinghorn, Tuipulotu.

England Team

1. Genge 2. Cowan-Dickie 3. Sinckler
4. Itoje 5. Isiekwe
6. Ludlam 7. Curry (c) 8. Simmonds.
9. Youngs 10. Smith
12. Slade 13. Daly
11. Marchant 14. Malins
15. Steward

Replacements: George, Marler, Stuart, Ewels, Dombrandt, Randall, Ford, Nowell.

No 7&1/2 wrote:

formerly known as Sam wrote:

No 7&1/2 wrote:That's disappointing to see Smith come off. I mean great replacement but not really needed.

Smiths barely been in the game. Very quiet by his standards.

Yeah that will happen  with a sh that doesn't like to pass. And now we've thrown it all away.

Yeah you can't blame Youngs for Smith playing within himself. He's had ball in attack and there's been no steps and hitch kicks. There's been no cute dinks. It's uncharacteristically flat from Smith. No that I'm saying Youngs has been particularly good, he's been a bit flat as well.

LCD's moment of panic looks like it might be very costly.

Gooseberry wrote:Guess they do miss Farrells stability and captaincy

The discipline was an issue when Faz was there as well.

RiscaGame wrote:

majesticimperialman wrote:Great try by marcus smith.

Are you on delay?

I think so.

formerly known as Sam wrote:

No 7&1/2 wrote:

formerly known as Sam wrote:

No 7&1/2 wrote:That's disappointing to see Smith come off. I mean great replacement but not really needed.

Smiths barely been in the game. Very quiet by his standards.

Yeah that will happen  with a sh that doesn't like to pass. And now we've thrown it all away.

Yeah you can't blame Youngs for Smith playing within himself. He's had ball in attack and there's been no steps and hitch kicks. There's been no cute dinks. It's uncharacteristically flat from Smith. No that I'm saying Youngs has been particularly good, he's been a bit flat as well.

LCD's moment of panic looks like it might be very costly.

Everything you complain about. Slow ball. Smith not getting enough ball. Can some down to a thing I've been banging on about. We've had so much good possession. It's time even Leicester fans reluctantly accept it.

Last scrum pen Scotland drive early again but now it's a pen against England. Also the line-out before was as straight as the quick throw for Scotland's try and only a bit less short of 5m than the Scotland one ... ref inconsistent throughout

No 7&1/2 wrote:

formerly known as Sam wrote:

No 7&1/2 wrote:

formerly known as Sam wrote:

No 7&1/2 wrote:That's disappointing to see Smith come off. I mean great replacement but not really needed.

Smiths barely been in the game. Very quiet by his standards.

Yeah that will happen  with a sh that doesn't like to pass. And now we've thrown it all away.

Yeah you can't blame Youngs for Smith playing within himself. He's had ball in attack and there's been no steps and hitch kicks. There's been no cute dinks. It's uncharacteristically flat from Smith. No that I'm saying Youngs has been particularly good, he's been a bit flat as well.

LCD's moment of panic looks like it might be very costly.

Everything you complain about. Slow ball. Smith not getting enough ball. Can some down to a thing I've been banging on about. We've had so much good possession. It's time even Leicester fans reluctantly accept it.

Totally Youngs' fault Smith kicked that penalty over the try line too

(Just for facts even though hes been off the pitch 11 minutes Smiths had 4 more possessions than Russell), Youngs passed 56 times to the combined Scottish SHs 45

Gooseberry wrote:

No 7&1/2 wrote:

formerly known as Sam wrote:

No 7&1/2 wrote:

formerly known as Sam wrote:

No 7&1/2 wrote:That's disappointing to see Smith come off. I mean great replacement but not really needed.

Smiths barely been in the game. Very quiet by his standards.

Yeah that will happen  with a sh that doesn't like to pass. And now we've thrown it all away.

Yeah you can't blame Youngs for Smith playing within himself. He's had ball in attack and there's been no steps and hitch kicks. There's been no cute dinks. It's uncharacteristically flat from Smith. No that I'm saying Youngs has been particularly good, he's been a bit flat as well.

LCD's moment of panic looks like it might be very costly.

Everything you complain about. Slow ball. Smith not getting enough ball. Can some down to a thing I've been banging on about. We've had so much good possession. It's time even Leicester fans reluctantly accept it.

Totally Youngs' fault Smith kicked that penalty over the try line too

(Just for facts even though hes been off the pitch 11 minutes Smiths had 4 more possessions than Parkes), Youngs passed 56 times to the combined Scottish SHs 45

Are you a Leicester fan by any chance? Just wondering if this is what classes as good SH service?

Tbf. His kicking has been rubbish today too.

Now the line outs are being thrown almost straight to the SH ...

No Im just bored by your confirmation bias and dogheadedness

Gooseberry wrote:No Im just bored by your confirmation bias and dogheadedness

Hes so bad though. Who do you support?

No 7&1/2 wrote:

formerly known as Sam wrote:

No 7&1/2 wrote:

formerly known as Sam wrote:

No 7&1/2 wrote:That's disappointing to see Smith come off. I mean great replacement but not really needed.

Smiths barely been in the game. Very quiet by his standards.

Yeah that will happen  with a sh that doesn't like to pass. And now we've thrown it all away.

Yeah you can't blame Youngs for Smith playing within himself. He's had ball in attack and there's been no steps and hitch kicks. There's been no cute dinks. It's uncharacteristically flat from Smith. No that I'm saying Youngs has been particularly good, he's been a bit flat as well.

LCD's moment of panic looks like it might be very costly.

Everything you complain about. Slow ball. Smith not getting enough ball. Can some down to a thing I've been banging on about. We've had so much good possession. It's time even Leicester fans reluctantly accept it.

Like a Quins fan that can't accept their golden boy hasn't had a good game for once.

formerly known as Sam wrote:

No 7&1/2 wrote:

formerly known as Sam wrote:

No 7&1/2 wrote:

formerly known as Sam wrote:

No 7&1/2 wrote:That's disappointing to see Smith come off. I mean great replacement but not really needed.

Smiths barely been in the game. Very quiet by his standards.

Yeah that will happen  with a sh that doesn't like to pass. And now we've thrown it all away.

Yeah you can't blame Youngs for Smith playing within himself. He's had ball in attack and there's been no steps and hitch kicks. There's been no cute dinks. It's uncharacteristically flat from Smith. No that I'm saying Youngs has been particularly good, he's been a bit flat as well.

LCD's moment of panic looks like it might be very costly.

Everything you complain about. Slow ball. Smith not getting enough ball. Can some down to a thing I've been banging on about. We've had so much good possession. It's time even Leicester fans reluctantly accept it.

Like a Quins fan that can't accept their golden boy hasn't had a good game for once.

And if I was a Harlequins fan I'd take that like a dagger in the heart.

As Nigel pointed out - why no free-kick for a dummy from the ruck?

How's the Scottish front row not conceded a penalty off those last two scrums?

Or that from the Scottish player crawling into the breakdown.

I don’t know which I’m more confused at, Ben O’Keefe’s bizarre reffing (against both sides), or someone’s decision to give Matt Fagerson MOTM

Or the high tackle

I'm glad we lost. You cannot kick away all the possession we had on their 22 and expect to win. That was coached and ordered kicking and it was the wrong tactic. England need to learn to play what's in front of them not what they were told to do.

Its hard to see a ref bow out of a game to not give a decisive decision...

There were at lest 1/2 scrums that should have been given as a pen to England, not to mention the final ruck where a Scot player went straight off their feet...

Good game, England will feel very hard done by.

formerly known as Sam wrote:Or that from the Scottish player crawling into the breakdown.

The officials spent the last 5 minutes just looking the other way ...

Good game of rugby. Referee bottled the call at the end, but England's try came from a bent lineout. LCD's stupidity cost England, and Smith shouldn't have been removed for Ford. Why did Nowell come on for the last seconds? England desperately need to move on from Youngs, this has been clear for over two years.

Deserved win for Scotland on the back of their solid defence. They've got a real, proper chance this year.

Massively disappointing. Should have won that.

Unlucky that England didn't get a result here, but not very suprising the result...

Scotland will fancy going into the home game v France 2 from 2 and things just got real for them!

Ah well - ref was dreadful as expected but England should have won that despite him. Congrats to Scotland but you can't help but feel England lost it rather than Scotland winning it ... as for LCD - what a plank.

I thought there was definitely a scrum penalty at the end but England threw it away with the LCD brain fart followed by Marler throwing into a lineout which is one of the dumbest things I've seen on a rugby field in years.

Sub George on for Simmonds, when LCDs sin bin period ends you bring Ewels on and move Isiekwe to blindside. That short lineout was embarrassing.

England had every chance to win that game from 7 points up having played well in the second half.

king_carlos wrote:I thought there was definitely a scrum penalty at the end but England threw it away with the LCD brain fart followed by Marler throwing into a lineout which is one of the dumbest things I've seen on a rugby field in years.

Sub George on for Simmonds, when LCDs sin bin period ends you bring Ewels on and move Isiekwe to blindside. That short lineout was embarrassing.

England had every chance to win that game from 7 points up having played well in the second half.

That was bizarre wasn't it.

Well played Scotland. You didn't have too many chances, but took what you got....sign of a good team.

For England, we were ok. Another day a we should have had quite a few more decisions, but that's the way things go.

Smith wasn't great but he had very little running off him and Youngs did provide him with some really slow ball (I don't want to go on about Youngs, it's been done to death). Midfield lacked balance and Steward had arguably his worst game so far.

A young team that will learn from this and hopefully we'll have some of our big players back after Italy. Can we please play Dombrandt instead of Simmonds?

The Marler lineout and the the lack of a scrum pen at the end were very strange.

Sgt_Pooly wrote:Well played Scotland. You didn't have too many chances, but took what you got....sign of a good team.

For England, we were ok. Another day a we should have had quite a few more decisions, but that's the way things go.

Smith wasn't great but he had very little running off him and Youngs did provide him with some really slow ball (I don't want to go on about Youngs, it's been done to death). Midfield lacked balance and Steward had arguably his worst game so far.

A young team that will learn from this and hopefully we'll have some of our big players back after Italy. Can we please play Dombrandt instead of Simmonds?

The old adage of you learn more from a loss than a win. Well it really brought it home today. The other one is that the pack decodes who wins the backs by how much; wrong! Pack went really well on the whole. Needs to be changes for the Italy game. I think Jones will be absolutely kicking himself tonight. And should be.

Why did smith go off? what had he done wrong?

Ben Youngs should not play again for England.

Yeah Marler throwing in at the line-out five meters out from his own line was a strange decision. You do see it a bit when a hooker has been sin-binned to be fair (Ali Price threw one in for Glasgow in their last game), but you also have to take the situation into account: scores level, a man down, going into the last ten minutes, and right on your own line. Surely getting George on then would have made sense? There was always a decent likelihood of a scrum happening in the remaining sin-bin period in any case...

Ultimately England had enough territory and possession to win that, but didn't have enough cutting edge going forward. I feel that they missed a big physical presence in there to shove the defence back more often, which might have created more space out wide. But credit also to Scotland, who's defensive system continues to be a well-oiled machine. And of course they took their chances when they got them, with a bit of help from LCD's moment of madness.

Considering the forecast, that was a thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining game of rugby IMO.

I find it hard to hear why Youngs shouldnt play for England, he didn't do much wrong and was a leader for the England team.

Sgt_Pooly wrote:The Marler lineout and the the lack of a scrum pen at the end were very strange.

Bottler O'Keefe ....

Heaf wrote:

Sgt_Pooly wrote:The Marler lineout and the the lack of a scrum pen at the end were very strange.

Bottler O'Keefe ....

Hard to argue with that, he didn't want to make a decision late on!

High tackle, scrum, off feet at ruck - take your pick ....

Have to say though heaf it's England that lost us that not the ref. So much possession and really didn't take advantage.

O'Keefe definitely didn't want to give a penalty at the end, but I'm not sure that makes him a bottler. Scrums were a mess all day, with neither side particularly interested in scrummaging legally from what I could see. I thought the call on the ante-penultimate scrum (the one where England actually did go forward) was actually correct: the Marler-Nel side went down first, before the shove, so a reset the right call, but 99% of the time you see that given as a penalty.

Then again, I thought England got the rub of the green for most of the second half, until the penalty try, after which things evened out a bit more. Certainly the line-out that led directly to England's try was very not straight.

But overall I actually quite liked O'Keefe as a ref: thought he managed the game well, with a good balance between allowing decent flow and not letting things become a free-for-all.

No 7&1/2 wrote:Have to say though heaf it's England that lost us that not the ref. So much possession and really didn't take advantage.

Agreed - as I said above "Ah well - ref was dreadful as expected but England should have won that despite him. Congrats to Scotland but you can't help but feel England lost it rather than Scotland winning it ... as for LCD - what a plank."

MAD - sorry to disagree re O'Keefe - he's just too random for me - for both sides ...

Ah well, we can agree to disagree on that Heaf. I think to some extent all rugby reffing has become rather random: the laws are to my mind just too complex for the speed and intensity the modern game is played at. But that's for another (much lengthier) debate.

We can agree on that for sure

Well that was disappointing. Firstly well done Scotland you have turned a corner in accuracy and toughing out wins. England should have used the ball more wisely and we're very inaccurate. Ref didn't have a clue at scrum time which did negate one of our strengths. He's not great at the breakdown, allowing defending players to be off their feet then pinging a team trying to ruck them out of the way for coming off their feet. Tmo was very quiet when some very high shots were coming in.

Youngs I'm afraid killed alot of our quick ball and his kicking was mostly not championship standard. we have overwhelming possession and didn't use it. Sorry but we have to look to the future now at 9.

Still them are breaks, roll on next week and play better.

I think both head coaches will go away thinking they've got to do more to get their attacking momentum up.

For England I don't really know what we were doing in the backs. Smith had little to work with and didn't have licence or confidence to try things outside of the set plays. Youngs seemed to be looking for players there being a lack of communication between the ruck and the rest of the attack, that being said the ball presentation was awful from the England forwards. Steward was left in the backfield with none of the plays using him charging up from deep where he was effective in the Autumn. Slade and Daly seemed to have one move and that was to grubber it in behind. Marchant was left hugging the touchline instead of the roaming role I think we'd all assume he'd have. It was back to the one dimensional stuff we saw last 6N.

I hope we switch the game plan up for the next game. I'd actually like us to bring Atkinson into the side at 12 and move Slade to 13. Give Smith that midfield target option for when things slow down which were definitely going to need in wintery conditions. Marchant in a roaming role, Steward coming into the line from deep. Should give us a lot more momentum.

Over all i think Smith played well today, i honestly believe that on a whole the team played well for a scratch side. My concern is if Farrell comes in next week who misses out?

What was the point on Knowell coming on in the dying seconds?
No Grand Slam for England this year, still in with a chance of winning the tournament though.
But must play better than today though.

Not really sure how we came out on top there, but we've been on the wrong side of plenty close ones so nice to get one go our way.

Ref had me scratching my head throughout the game, and particularly at the set piece. Thought he was dreadful.

We showed plenty guts and spirit, and were sharp in attack for that first try. Clung on abit for large parts, and gave away an array of daft penalties conceding territory and possession. Steve Tandy deserves a medal for what he's done to our defence. Despite the lions share of territory and possession, I wasn't really that worried when England were attacking. Their main tactic was to kick the ball away, which we coped with fine.

On to Wales, and the inevitable backlash after Ireland thrashed them earlier today!

Ooft this looked a stressful one! Sounds like a proper 6N contest that we all know and love - high drama and intensity and plenty to talk about.

Looking forward to watching it this morning - bet it's a lot less stressful for me.

Dirtydave wrote:I find it hard to hear why Youngs shouldnt play for England, he didn't do much wrong and was a leader for the England team.

His pass for Smiths try was poor service and the reason England lost.

Ah close loss by the Soap Dodgers, no worries still learning and building for 2031 World Cup

Gooseberry wrote:

Dirtydave wrote:I find it hard to hear why Youngs shouldnt play for England, he didn't do much wrong and was a leader for the England team.

His pass for Smiths try was poor service and the reason England lost.

Think that account has been disbanded as a troll. One swallow don't make a summer and all that.