Saracens ring rust costly for England
JAMIE George denied he and his fellow Saracens teammates were “under-cooked” after Scotland ended a 38-year Twickenham drought and England began their Six Nations defence in dismal fashion.
Head coach Eddie Jones also defended his team selection after his gamble backfired and England had the Calcutta Cup ripped from their grasps.
The northern hemisphere champions, including five Sarries’ starters who had hardly played any rugby since the Autumn Internationals, looked ring rusty and out of sorts.
They lost 11-6 to pumped up, adrenalin-fuelled rivals who out-gunned them in every department in the pouring rain. England were also architects of their own downfall with poor discipline and a lack of defensive and attacking aggression and skills.
Some had questioned Jones’ decision to pick George, captain Owen Farrell, Elliot Daly, Billy Vunipola and Maro Itoje despite the potential for them to lack match fitness and sharpness.
That’s the way it looked on the field but George claimed: “Physically I felt good and I don’t think it was us being undercooked. I didn’t think that was the case. We were always chasing our tails and let them off the hook with our own indiscipline.”
Jones insisted: “Maybe it wasn’t the ideal situation having no rugby for some players since the autumn but it is what it is. I chose the team and I stand by my selections. Everyone is a good selector after the game!
“We just had one of those days when we were a long way off our best. It’s as simple as that. We were just not good enough today and off the pace. We only had 25 per cent possession! When you have no ball to play with it is difficult!
“You have days like that. I take the blame for not preparing the team well enough. We had a big penalty count against us and we only have ourselves to blame for that.
“A game like this lives with you for a long time but the players must start concentrating on their next challenge against Italy.”
England were penalised 15 times compared to Scotland’s six by Irish referee Andrew Brace while they missed twice as many tackles as their rivals.
All the home side could muster were two Farrell penalties while Scotland
grabbed the only try of the game in the first half courtesy of wing Duhan van der Merwe. Both sides had players sin-binned in the first half with Billy Vunipola shown a yellow card for a high tackle on Finn Russell while the Scotland fly-half suffered the same fate for a trip on Ben Youngs.
England skipper Farrell conceded: “We never got a foothold in the game or a grip of things and Scotland kept us out the game. They got a good start with some momentum through our penalties.
“We need to take a good hard look at what went wrong and how we performed here. We have to use the feeling of disappointment we have now and use it next time we get onto the field against Italy. We must make sure this defeat lights a fire for us going forward into the rest of the tournament and make things happen rather than let things happen.”
Scotland captain Stuart Hogg praised his team for ending their Twickenham jinx and the man of the match full-back enthused: “This is certainly up there with the proudest moments in the blue jersey for me.
“It’s an amazing, unbelievable feeling to come to this place and win in this fashion. We believed in each other out there and it showed in our performance. We knew we could come down here and put in a performance. We knew we could attack them and cause them problems. It all worked perfectly, but now we must back it up against the Welsh.”
Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend said: “It’s one of the best and proudest moments of my coaching career. We had a clinical edge in our attack and a real maturity about the whole performance.
“There was a calmness and togetherness about the way we played. We had a very good feeling in the build up to the game and the players really stepped up. What a great way to start a new Championship! We will enjoy this tonight but they come thick and fast and we will quickly focus on how we will play against the Welsh. That will be another huge challenge.”