England will 'never atone' for shock Scotland defeat
Eddie Jones admitted chastened England will never come to terms with an 11-6 defeat by Scotland that has put an early dent in their Guinness Six Nations title defence.
The Scots claimed their first victory at Twickenham since 1983 after dominating the Auld Enemy on the 150th anniversary of the first meeting between the rivals, wing Duhan Van Der Merwe crossing for the only try.
Gregor Townsend’s underdogs celebrated the win wildly at the final whistle and the only disappointment was that that the scoreline failed to reflect their mastery of opponents who failed to fire a shot.
“You never atone for a game like this. This stays with you for a long time,” head coach Jones said.
“But the most important thing is that we get together and we find a way to improve our performance and play like England do when we come up against Italy next week.”
Jones returned to a well-worn theme of blaming himself for one of the worst performances of his reign as England were woefully off the pace, shooting themselves in the foot with a high penalty count.
“We just couldn’t find a way to get into the game. On a day like this the set-piece will always be important, the contest in the air will be important, the gainline will be important, and we couldn’t win any of those areas,” Jones said.
“We just seemed to be off the pace and I have to blame myself, I didn’t prepare the team well enough.
“The players play the game but sometimes you have those days and we had one today. Scotland played very well.
Not a bad debut @camredpath pic.twitter.com/gJlaPQ7QRz
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) February 6, 2021
“They had a particular game plan which they stuck to and executed really well. They had enormous possession in the first half and a big penalty count and we’ve only got ourselves to blame for the discipline issues. It was just one of those days.”
Apart from Billy Vunipola, England’s Saracens contingent had not played since the final of the Autumn Nations Cup on December 6 and unsurprisingly they made little impact.
“We’re just grateful for the opportunity to be able to play rugby,” Jones said.
“Maybe it wasn’t the ideal preparation but it is what it is and we’ve got to be good enough to be able to cope with that. Everyone is a good selector after the game.”
"The Saracens players weren't at the races"
– Ex-Scotland coach gets stuck into England's Sarries contingent on Irish TV 🔥#ENGvSCO #SixNations
https://t.co/8xn0cuUTvO— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) February 6, 2021
Scotland’s forwards submitted the home pack but behind the scrum is where the fireworks were lit as Finn Russell, Stuart Hogg, Cameron Redpath and Van Der Merwe swaggered around Twickenham.
“We’d talked a lot in the last couple of weeks about lifting a nation, and I believe we’ve done that,” full-back Hogg said.
“This win is a huge deal to us all. During the week we said that if we got everything right on both sides of the ball we’d give ourselves a chance, and we did exactly that.
“I’m incredibly proud of the boys. We believed we could dome down here and win, but we kept that to ourselves. It was incredible for us.”
Comments on RugbyPass
Who's Jarrad Hohepa?
1 Go to commentsSo let me get this straight. Say you have the dominant scrum. You are 99% sure you can go for a scrum pushover try on the line to win the game. The opposition knows it too. They give away a silly tap kick instead. You are now not allowed to scrum. This is ridiculous! *%@ing the game up as usual! The fact that the attacking teams are not allowed to scrum from a held up over the line is just as ridiculous. Really world rugby? Careful people might start a rebel league called True Rugby or Real Rugby.
72 Go to comments12 subs during a game? How has that been allowed to happen NB? I hate when the game goes in this monopolistic direction closing up shop, it just becomes non sport. Btw have you seen anything of how Liam Coltman was tracking for Lyon? He has just signed to return to Otago though we have a couple of young hookers developing here. He was a popular gentle natured character down here and I’m glad to see him back but maybe he will be a mentor primarily?
4 Go to commentsGreat breakdown and the global politics always confuses me a little. The southern hemisphere seems to be left out a bit but I wouldn’t even know where to start with fixing it. Club challenge could be a step in the right direction
4 Go to commentsSince he coached Free state, from that time onwards, I maintained he was the coach for the Boks. A nice, no nonsense guy with an excellent brain, who gets results.
11 Go to commentswell - they only played against 14 men and had the TMO team on their side - and still should have lost… so actually that makes sense.
32 Go to commentsSouthern hemisphere Rugby is exactly that, boring. Northern Hemisphere Rugby is soooo much more entertaining and better with better players.
2 Go to commentsIf he was to be cited for a dangerous behavior, then it’s natural that he should be. Then NTamack too, yes? And I’ll add a good whataboutism - Yeandle eye-gouging on Richie Arnold: not cited. Eye-gouging. Not high tackle. Eye-gouging. It was on French TV, with French TV directors.
5 Go to commentsReally poorly written rambling piece ..
4 Go to commentsIt was so boring
2 Go to commentspersonally I’d go with : 1. France 2. NZ 3. England 4. Ireland 5. Scotland
32 Go to commentsAndy everything becomes easier with experience therefor counting etc straight after a match becomes easier when you have 100+ caps vs 17 which is the experience you speak from.
160 Go to commentsGetting rid of the Dupont Law is a good thing and ought to have been done months ago! Officially getting rid of the croc roll is a good thing. The law about no scrums from a short arm is well intended in terms of speeding the game up but it’s an overreaction to a clever yet calculated gamble that could have blow up in South Africa’s face if they conceded a penalty from the scrum that was set after Willemse took claimed the mark in the World Cup QF.
72 Go to commentsRassie The GOAT
11 Go to commentsOf their 5 big matches in RWC Scotland and NZ were the easiest. They took a 12-3 lead against NZ and after the red decided it was best to hold the lead and take chances that came. None came and it was tight but they dug a lot deeper in the other two knock out matches. They had trounced NZ in Twickenham in a fixture that NZ must now regret. Psychology was clearly with SA in the final as a result.
32 Go to commentsMy favourite line/exchanges from Chasing the Sun 2. News headline: “SA. The last hurdle in ABs World Cup glory”. Something like that. “You’re all just a hurdle. A hop, skip and a jump”. Coming from Rassie and Jacque. Basically - nobody thinks you’re going to win. You’re just a pushover team. Nobody respects you. When the camera shows the players faces, you can see the effect. You can see the rev meters (die moer metertjies) firing up. Mitchell said he felt it prior to the 19 final. He said to Eddie watching the teams warming up that it was going to be a tough day at the office. Wave a red flag in front of South African, and you can expect a reaction. This is not unique - many teams rev themselves. And Bok teams in particular. With horrific consequences (discipline, poor thinking under pressure) because that’s the drawback to using emotion right? But what this Bok team does better than many since 2007 is channel the emotion and stay on task. Despite the emotion. Why, because while Rassie might play mind games - he talks about creating a safe environment. Listen to his recent honorary doctorate acceptance speech. While he uses psychology he creates psychological safety. He’s a damn fine coach. Can’t wait for Pretoria. It’s going to be a hummer.
11 Go to commentsWhat Rassie does for SA is big. It has helped people to unite and see we can win with the right people in place.
11 Go to commentsTerrible conditions for young players to express themselves just enjoy it guys. As a saffa great to see Ausie youth looking good. Wow SA have some great talent also.
2 Go to commentsYes, another example of French tv directors ensuring that incidents like this are swiftly glossed over for the benefit of their teams…
5 Go to commentsThe prospect of the club match ups across hemispheres is surely appetising for everyone. The reality however, may prove to be slightly different. There are currently two significant driving forces that have delivered to same teams consistently to the latter champions cup stages for years now. The first of those is the yawning gap in finances, albeit delivered by different routes. In France it’s wealthy private owners operating with a higher salary cap by some distance compared to England. In Ireland it’s led by a combination of state tax relief support, private Leinster academy funding and IRFU control - the provincial budgets are not equal! This picture is not going to change anytime soon. The second factor is the EPCR competition rules. You don’t need a PhD. in advanced statistical analysis from oxbridge to see the massive advantage bestowed upon the home team through every ko round of the tournament. The SA teams will gain the opportunity for home ko ties in due course but that could actually polarise the issue even further, just look at their difficulties playing these ties in Europe and then reverse them for the opposition travelling to SA. Other than that, the picture here is unlikely to change either, with heavyweight vested interests controlling the agenda. So what does all this point to for the club world championship? Well the financial differential between the nh and sh teams is pretty clear. And the travel issues and sporting challenge for away teams are significantly exacerbated beyond those already seen in the EPCR tournaments. So while the prospect of those match ups may whet our rugby appetites, I’m very much still to be convinced the reality will live up to expectations…
4 Go to comments