NO CUTTING EDGE HAS COST US YET AGAIN

THAT game really felt like a step back for Scotland. Back to the bad old days of having a lot of possession but no cutting edge or no ability to do what is needed to convert their possession into tries. The Scots played themselves into good positions on a number of occasions but did not make the right decisions at the key times to make the right play. Decision-making is not just down to Finn Russell as the stand-off; it is about all of the players making decisions about the angle of the run they make or the angle of support. Too many times Scotland lost their shape in attack when play got into multi-phases. They either knocked the ball on or Englandg secured a penalty for not releasing.ng. The only real cutting edge came from Stuart Hogg at full-back. He had a good game and was probably our best player. Certainly, he was the likeliest player to breach the English defence and score the try that would have given Scotland a chance to win the game. He carried the ball for 90 metres during the match, which was more than a quarter of the distance made by the whole team combined. You would expect the full-back to carry the ball more than most in a game when there is a lot of kicking and this was certainly true on Saturday. But I liked the way that Hogg varied his counter-attacks, kicking it back at times, then running it at other times. He is excellent at scanning what iss happening in front of him with the defence and trying to pinpoint where the weakness is for him to attack. This means identifying where the forwards are, then trying to set upp a mismatch where his speed and superb sidestep allow him to break that defensive line.

79 SCOTLAND’S lineout was not at its best on Saturday, with only a 79-per-cent success rate — compared to England’s 93 per cent