WE’LL STILL MAKE OUR MARC ON IT
England 23 Scotland 29
MARCUS SMITH has promised England will “shock” even themselves by how much they improve in the Six Nations.
The Harlequins star admits they let Scotland “off the hook”, blaming a couple of “switch-off moments” for coughing up victory at Twickenham.
The Calcutta Cup, Triple Crown and Grand Slam were all lost but the title race is still alive and England’s playmaker has warned against writing them off.
“We want to play at a different tempo than anyone’s seen before,” said Smith. “We’re trying to shock ourselves as to how fast we can play, how much pressure we can put on the opposition and on ourselves to play at this speed.
“It’s going to take time. It’s going to take mistakes for us to build and to learn. But if we get to that pace we’ll shock ourselves and we’ll shock opposition.”
The shock on Saturday was England letting slip an eight-point lead and allowing Duhan van der Merwe to rampage through half their team to score the first of his two tries.
“I’m gutted, I hate losing,” said Smith. “Even when I play FIFA against my brothers or lose at darts to my dad I’m not happy at all.
“But it was a much better performance than we showed in the autumn, which was massively disappointing.
“I’ll watch the tape, relax my mind, then come back with solutions.”
Meanwhile, Ben White says Scotland can shed their Six Nations bottlers tag.
The scrum-half is adamant history will not repeat itself by following Saturday’s win with failure against Wales.
It is only the fourth time a Scottish side has opened a campaign with a win but three of those occasions have been followed by defeat to the Dragons.
The London Irish star said: “We need to get the mental stuff right.
“We’re a bit sick of having the same story written. You know, beat England then lose to Wales. We want to make it two wins from two.”