Gregor Townsend has insisted that Scotland’s recurring habit of raising their game for England is a positive thing as he urged his team to use a fifth Calcutta Cup win in the past six years as a springboard for a proper tilt at the Six Nations title.
The Scots have lost only twice to the Auld Enemy in nine years under Townsend but have struggled to replicate the same intensity and accuracy against other opponents, never finishing above third on his watch.
But after a comprehensive 31-20 beating of Steve Borthwick’s side that sent Murrayfield into raptures, Townsend hit back at critics — including Times columnist and former England captain Courtney Lawes — who believe that Scotland prioritise this fixture at the expense of all others.
Townsend played down any negative from his side raising their game against England
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“I did find it funny that people are looking at it as a negative. And that’s what it was looking like, that we do well in this fixture. You guys are here. You know what this fixture means. I played this team ten times [as a player] and only won one game. I watched the team lose game after game and nothing hits harder than losing to England.
“The one game that we won back in 2000, we lost all our other games in the Six Nations that year and it lifted everybody. It was the best result. So to play our best rugby against England is a massive positive. If I was to choose one team to play your best rugby against it would be England every single time. We saw the atmosphere before the game, during the game and after the game and what it means to our supporters.
“We have something tangible [a trophy] that we can have in our changing room and obviously we have to play well in every game but to be able to deliver that performance and the performances we’ve delivered even last year … I thought last year was outstanding. There won’t be many times where we’ve gone to Twickenham and outscored England three tries to one.
“It’s great that our players can have that belief and accuracy and effort in this fixture because they [England] are a top team. They’re either second or third in the world I imagine but it shows what the team can do and can do in other games but I’d take every time a victory against England or anybody.”
Saturday’s success brought to mind Townsend’s first Calcutta Cup victory as coach back in 2018, when a Finn Russell-inspired Scotland established a commanding lead with three first-half tries then closed out the game via excellent defence, physicality and work at the breakdown.
The following year at Twickenham, they came from 31-0 down to draw, and a narrow 2020 defeat north of the border was the precursor to four successive Scottish wins, including their first two victories in London since 1983. England broke the sequence last March, winning 16-15 at Twickenham, but the Scots dominated pretty much every area apart from the scrum this time around.
Asked if it was his favourite Calcutta Cup win, Townsend replied: “I asked the same question to Huw Jones in the changing room when we were sharing a beer after the game. He’s played in a lot of these and I was asking him what his favourite game was. I don’t think anything probably can beat 2018 because it’d been a long time [ten years] since we beat England. This was a very similar game where the tries we scored in the first half were comparable to 2018. And then the effort and defence in the second half. So it matched 2018.
“But I talked to the guys about 2023 and that performance away from home. It was the first time we’d won away from home in so many years with a crowd and the way we won it and the team effort with that try at the end, that was hard to beat. They’re all good memories.
“I’m just so pleased for the players, for them to play that level against such a top team, the accuracy, the ambition, the bravery and then the colossal effort in the second half when guys were getting injured and players having to come on and the possession that England had was great to see.”
While Russell, Jones and Scotland’s other brilliant attackers stole the show, Townsend was quick to hail the resolve his side showed on the other side of the ball to limit England in their rare spells of control.
Townsend talked up the work of his new defence coach Radford
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“I’m delighted they got a charge-down as during the week Scott Cummings got a charge-down on the drop-goal [in training]. It’s something that [the defence coach] Lee [Radford] had identified in practice. So not only was there a charge-down, it was a big part of the game that Huw ended up scoring from.
“We’ll enjoy having the trophy but we’ve got to realise that this is week four now of a campaign. I said to Sione [Tuipulotu], ‘When’s a good time to tell the players to stop drinking?’ But we’ve enjoyed the changing room. It brings back so many good memories having the trophy in there but we now know we’ve got a job to do. Someone mentioned we’re top of the table but there’s a championship to go for now. We weren’t feeling that way last Saturday night or last Sunday morning [after defeat in Rome].
“The only way we can go after this championship is if we win next week and then we have a week off. So that’s a goal for us now.”
With a triple crown to aim for too, supporters will be desperate to see Scotland maintain their level away to Wales on Saturday. They won on their most recent Cardiff visit two years ago, ending a barren streak stretching back to 2002. The presence of Townsend’s long-time assistant Steve Tandy as Wales head coach will ensure a degree of inside knowledge on both sides.
Dempsey is expected to miss the rest of the tournament
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“He knows us very well and he’s obviously a defence coach so he’ll be able to put a plan in place. But coaches don’t play against coaches. It’s obviously players against players and our players know what Steve wanted from them defensively. Steve built an excellent defence with us but there are other elements we have to make sure we understand, respect and find ways that we can impose our game on Wales.”
Townsend will need to make changes, with three players having picked up injuries against England. Jack Dempsey, the outstanding No8, is not expected to feature again in the tournament after suffering a bicep injury, Jamie Ritchie is a serious doubt for this weekend owing to his knee issue while Jamie Dobie was forced off late on with a shoulder knock. None of this trio are due to travel to Oliva Nova near Valencia for this week’s warm-weather camp, but Ewan Ashman could be available after missing England with neck and shoulder injuries.
The Calcutta Cup game was Townsend’s 100th in charge. Had the occasion been marked by the players in the dressing room? “No, and if I’d ever heard of a plan to do that, they would have been dropped out of the team,” he deadpanned.