Why Borthwick still backed England to win deep into Calcutta Cup demolition

England head coach Steve Borthwick remained quietly confident that his side were going to turn around their 24-10 second-half deficit against Scotland in the second round of the Guinness Six Nations, until George Ford’s “10-point swing” failed drop goal.

Borthwick referred to the way his side have “reeled teams in” over the past year, particularly the All Blacks in November, as a reason why England could have overturned Scotland’s lead at Murrayfield.

However, he described Ford’s failed drop goal, which gifted Huw Jones a try after 53 minutes, as a “big point in the game”.

England would have only trailed by eight points had the kick gone over, and Borthwick believes the match would have had a “different complexion” compared to the 18-point margin they found themselves chasing soon after.

This was a match which also saw Henry Arundell red-carded for two yellow-card infringements in the first half, which Borthwick concedes “hurt us”, but he nevertheless retained a degree of confidence until the botched drop goal.

“What’s happened over the last period of time is, we’ve slowly reeled teams in,” he said after the match.

“You’ve seen against New Zealand, we’re 12-0 down, we reel them in, reel them in gradually. Unfortunately, we gave them too much of a head start and gave ourselves too much to do today. Playing 30 minutes of that first 50 with 14 men hurt us.”

Regarding the failed drop goal, he said: “Clearly, at that point in the game, with a team that has reeled in a lot of opponents over a long period of time, at 24-13, if you get that drop goal, 24-16, you’re thinking ‘right,’ with still 24 minutes left, that’s a different complexion. To go down the other end and lose seven points, that 10-point swing was big.

“Clearly, that was a big point in the game, but there are plenty of other smaller moments in the game that added up to that result.”