Rugby is a humbling sport. England had not lost a game in 12 months. They had strung together 12 consecutive victories and they had not been tested in a while. And then they lost to Scotland at Murrayfield, against a team they knew they should beat. That brings you back down to earth in a hurry.
Depending on how England react, it could prove a valuable experience for the growth of this team. Don’t get me wrong. Losing is not better than winning. But when you are on a long winning run, you can start just rolling along. Things can get comfortable. The team can get a little complacent, usually without even knowing it or realising it.
It could be as little as a player’s main rival is injured, so the level of competition in training is not quite the same or the anxiety over selection is eased a little. At the very highest level, those small percentages can be enough.
But when you get shocked with a defeat, it reminds you: “We are playing rugby. If you aren’t going to take the game to your opponents, they will take the game to you.”
England weren’t at the races at Murrayfield. It is easy to see what went wrong. Scotland essentially used England’s tactics against them: launch high balls, win them back and put pace on the attack.
We got beaten in the areas we couldn’t afford to lose, which were territory and physicality. We could not win anything in the air. We squandered tryscoring opportunities. When we built pressure we gave away turnovers or our skills would let us down.
Harder to pin down is why we were so flat and sluggish. It’s like Scotland surprised us again with their game plan, their speed and their intensity. That should not have happened, but it is not the first time at Murrayfield that England have been caught off guard.
Pollock will bring personality and punch to England’s attack
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I was impressed with Scotland in a lot of ways but their performance just reinforced the point I made last week: how can you play like that against England every year but lose to Italy?
I like a lot of the boys in their team as people. They’ve got a load of really good players. But any team can get up for one game a season. You’ve beaten England. Well done. But are you going to finish ahead of them in the table?
Gregor Townsend said after the win that Scotland had put a smile on peoples’ faces for 12 months. That sums up the mentality. I’d want to say, “Can you reproduce the quality of Saturday’s performance against Ireland in a fixture Scotland have not won since 2017?”
But it was a sore weekend for England. I like Steve Borthwick’s tactic of announcing the England team early in the week. When Warren Gatland did so with Wales, it was interpreted as a bold move — Gats going on the front foot with a message to the opposition: “Well, this is us, what have you got?”
There may be an element of that in Borthwick’s strategy but, particularly after a defeat, going public with the team on a Tuesday helps to switch the focus. It allows the hangover from Murrayfield to pass more quickly.
Everyone can stop stewing on what went wrong and start focusing on how to react. The mind shifts to Ireland on Saturday and a pivotal game for both teams. One of them will head into the fallow week out of contention for the title, with just one win from three games.
Freddie Steward, of England, is stopped by Tom Jordan at Murrayfield on an afternoon when England were beaten at their own game
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If that is England, they will be hard pressed to finish even third with trips after the break to face Italy in Rome and France in Paris. The whole championship is on the line. So too is everything that England achieved over their unbeaten year.
Go and prove that the winning run meant something. That it was for a reason. England have still got all the potential in the world and the ability to realise that potential. This is England’s opportunity to show people that you can have a bad game and get straight back on the horse and perform against a good team like Ireland. This is their opportunity to improve as a team.
The selections of Henry Pollock, Tom Curry and Ollie Lawrence point to an England team who will bring more punch in attack and more pace across the park to fix up the areas that went wrong against Scotland and deliver that immediate reaction.
I like Borthwick’s selections. He’s gone for a really good balance in the back row. Henry is the kind of player that England need, someone who will bring a lot of pace and abrasive ball-carrying. He is physical in attack and has immense speed down the wing.
He can also make his mark in defence with his ability to turn the ball over. I’d like to see him in the thick of it in defence a bit more. He prefers to look for the breakdown opportunities rather than be in amongst it in the tackle.
But that’s also part of his game. He’s definitely improving. He’s participating more as a forward and trying to get himself through those brick wall situations when he needs to. Henry has got a really good opportunity to go out there and impose himself on the game.
England won little aerial ball at Murrayfield against Finn Russell and co
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He is playing alongside Ben Earl, who will get through a ton of work, and Curry, the most well-rounded back row player in England, maybe in the world.
One of the things that stood out against Scotland was the lack of penetration and pace in the back line. We were struggling to get front-foot ball. I’m gutted for Immanuel Feyi-Waboso that he is out with a hamstring injury because he’s such a good player for England. He does so much in terms of just getting you on the front foot and beating defenders.
Lawrence is fantastic in the centre. He is much quicker than you think and he has got really good hands. He is going to get you over the gainline, bend the defence and create some space outside him for Tommy Freeman and Henry Arundell.
England will target the Ireland scrum, which held up OK against France but turned ugly against Italy. That will be a massive factor for England in their bid to get back on to the horse.