HUW BEAUTY!

Townsend hails his greatest win after Jones try double

SCOTLAND head coach Gregor Townsend hailed a first Calcutta Cup triumph in a decade as better than the autumn humiliation of Australia.

Having masterminded Scotland’s 25-13 victory, the first against England since 2008 and largest ever in the Six Nations, he said: ‘From a coaching perspective, that’s the biggest win I’ve had.

‘We came very close to beating the No 1 team in the world in November and we’ve now taken on

the No 2 team, a team that’s been very consistent, and we’ve won the game. We believed we had to play a certain way to win the game, and we executed that really well.

‘The first half of that game and the first half of the New Zealand game were similar, in our intent to play the way we believed would be a success, and our accuracy. Our defence was outstanding in both those games. The difference tonight was that we finished off opportunities and took them really well.

‘The second half was always going to be a tighter affair. They were going to come back, they would have adjusted to certain things we were doing, and the ball was certainly slower in the second half for us.

‘So, it wasn’t the complete performance, but the way we defended in the second half, especially in the last two minutes, was excellent.

‘We’ve got Ireland (in two weeks) who are an outstanding team with a great home record and have our own issues to deal with about being better away from home, so that’s going to be our focus when we come back to camp. We have to show a truer picture of what we’re about when we play away from home.

‘We want to improve. It is about progressing, finding a way to win, but getting better. That was much more like the standard of performance that we put in in November and we now have to move onto our next two games and make sure we improve.’

Townsend’s opposite number Eddie Jones had been disparaging of Scotland, suggesting the ‘darlings’ had been talked up too much in the autumn and questioning their wide style of play. But he heaped praise on the Scots and insisted that despite some of his players insisting the Calcutta Cup was ‘just another game’, they had not been complacent.

‘Full credit to Scotland — they deserved the victory and played very well,’ said the Australian. ‘They are a good side and we respected them, and we knew it was going to be a tough game.

‘We invited them to the game and they took full advantage, and raced away. It is hard to get back 22 points. I think we showed a lot of courage and character to get ourselves back in a position where we could have conceivably won the game.

‘But we were ready for it. I apologise for our performance. Scotland played better than us, they were too good for us — sometimes this happens.’