Below-best Scots battered by rampant England side
SCOTLAND 0 ENGLAND 46 Scotland coach Bryan Easson admitted his team were well below their best after they went down to an eight-try defeat by Six Nations champions England.
The scoreline was actually slightly better than in recent games between the teams – but it did not feel that way, as the visitors dominated pretty much from the first minute.
England had two other touchdowns chalked off in the first half and might easily have scored a few more but for the strong wind, which blew some passes off course.
They also had to play nearly half the game with just 14 players, as hooker Amy Cokayne was sin-binned in the first half for a dangerous tackle and then sent off after the break for shoulder-on-head contact on Lana Skeldon.
“I thought England were outstanding today,” Easson said.
“Once you give them ball on the front foot, with that momentum they will put you under pressure and they are the best team in the world for a reason.
“The disappointing thing for us is that we didn’t really fire a shot or get into good attacking positions and we are disappointed with that.
“It was a mixture of a few things. It was difficult conditions, but it was difficult for both teams. England are a physical team and they got very quick ball in this game.
“We will draw a line under this game after the review on Monday and let’s not forget that our first two performances were really good.
“We will regroup, refocus and take learnings as we build into the two big games to come against Italy and Ireland.
“We have to keep improving and keep working hard to close the gap between ourselves and England because today wasn’t us, it was poor.
“There were glimpses in there, but today wasn’t good enough. We have got good things in us, but we let England get on the front foot and they punished us.”
Scotland were forced into a late change when lock Emma Wassell pulled out for family reasons. Fi Mcintosh was promoted from the replacements for her debut, while Eva Donaldson came on to the bench.
It was Cokayne who gave the visitors the lead in the opening minutes, breaking through three tackles from five metres out to score an unconverted try. Abby Dow then made it two when, with the home defence sucked into midfield, play went right and the winger was presented with ample space to go round Rollie and touch down.
Jess Breach and Maud Muir had scores chalked off either side of Cokayne’s yellow-card offence, but although Scotland made initial inroads against the seven-woman pack, England soon got back on to the front foot.
Ellie Kildunne got their third try from a Meg Jones grubber. Holly Aitchison, whose first two attempts had gone wide, converted to take the half-time score to 0-17.
Playing into the wind, Scotland were even more up against it in the second half, and fell further behind within minutes of the restart when Sadia Kabeya scored the bonus-point try off the back of a powerful scrum. Aitchison converted.
Breach got her team’s fifth off the back of an advancing scrum, then, after Cokayne’s dismissal, ran in another all too easily against a tiring defence.
Kildunne and substitute Marley Packer added further tries in the final 15, with Zoe Harrison adding a conversion.
While England are now two games away from another Grand Slam, Scotland will focus their attention on their real objective for the season: the third-place finish that will qualify them for both WXV1 and next year’s Rugby World Cup.
Having beaten Wales in round one before losing to France, they may now need to defeat both Italy and Ireland on the road to achieve that aim.