‘This was a painful experience’

ENGLAND coach Steve Borthwick admitted it was a ‘painful’ night in Scotland as his team suffered a fourth consecutive Calcutta Cup defeat for the first time since 1896.

Giant winger Duhan van der Merwe scored a hat-trick to set off a night of raucous Scottish celebrations in Edinburgh.

He punished an error-ridden England to leave Borthwick’s team licking their wounds as they head into daunting Tests against Ireland and France.

‘What is very clear is that if you make that many handling errors at this level it is very difficult to win especially against a team of Scotland’s quality,’ Borthwick said.

‘Ultimately we made it too easy for them to score but they were very clinical. A huge lesson for our team, as they develop, is that this number of turnovers make it very difficult to win.

‘We would all love progression to be in a nice linear path but it is not, especially at this level. You see a team that are trying to develop and add layers to its game but they made errors today. Sometimes you get punished for them, sometimes you don’t. It is a really painful lesson.

‘There was a lack of cohesion in what we did and too many fundamental errors. After a performance when you don’t think you have maximised your potential there is disappointment. It doesn’t matter about the result on the scoreboard in that sense but I don’t think the team maximised their potential today.’

Captain Jamie George did not attempt to hide his disappointment. It brought an end end to his team’s unlikely Grand Slam bid but the hooker believes there are better days ahead.

‘If you look at our run of form in the last nine or ten games, we’ve won a lot of those,’ George (right) said. ‘If you look at the more global picture of where we are as a team and how we are performing and where we are progressing to, and take a step back and look at it as a whole, there are a lot of positive signs.

‘Do we need to get better? Absolutely. Are we doing everything we can to do that? Absolutely.

‘The fact that we are back at Twickenham (against Ireland on March 9) is very exciting for me,’ continued George.