EDINBURGH — England coach Steve Borthwick was left “bitterly disappointed” and lamenting a host of missed chances following his side’s 31-20 defeat to Scotland on Saturday.
England lost the Calcutta Cup again after just a year having been outplayed by Scotland at Murrayfield.
The hosts stormed out to a 17-0 lead from which England never recovered, and Borthwick said their execution cost them throughout the game.
“Bitterly disappointed. Huge credit to the Scotland team, I thought they played really well today,” Borthwick said in a post-match news conference.
“I think in that first 20 minutes to concede the points we conceded … Disappointing. What’s typically been happening is we’ve slowly reeled teams in.
“When we played against New Zealand, we went 12-0 down, we reeled them in gradually. Unfortunately, we gave them too much of a headstart and gave ourselves too much to do. Playing 30 minutes of that first 50 with 14 men hurt us.”
Scotland scored two tries following a yellow card to Henry Arundell in the eighth minute.
While he returned to the field and scored England’s first try, the winger received a second yellow — and therefore a red — just before the break.
Scotland, thanks in part to fine performances from fly-half Finn Russell and centres Sione Tuipulotu and Huw Jones, made England pay throughout the match, exploiting the gaps their rivals left.
“Clearly playing such a huge part of the game without a winger against a team that was moving the ball to that edge that hurt us and ultimately it gave us too much to do in the second half,” Borthwick said.
England’s afternoon was summed up by Jones’ second-half try, when England were in a good position but George Ford’s drop goal attempt was charged down, with Scotland going 70 metres upfield to score.
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Borthwick was frustrated his side weren’t more clinical.
“What we certainly did was create lots of opportunities to score,” he said.
“There was a lot of time particularly in that second half we spent a lot of time in the opposition 22.
“If we’d taken some of those chances maybe the game would have been different.”
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