England v Scotland 6N Round 5 Saturday 16th March

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England v Scotland
6N Round 5
Saturday 16th March
Twickenham Stadium
London

KO 17.00

Well here we are at the final round of matches and three teams can still come out on top following Ireland's demolition of France this afternoon.

England have the advantage of playing last and will know what they have to do, if Wales have not already wrapped it up with a Grand Slam earlier in the afternoon. That actually might be Scotland's best chance of getting anything out of this game if England get distracted about what is going on else where, particularly if they find playing for second spot a distraction, knowing Wales have already wrapped things up.

On paper, this is only going to be an English win, the only question being by how much.

Scotland have had an awful championship, where just about everything that could have gone wrong. They are only playing for pride, but history tells us that sides that are done at this stage in the competition, rarely have anything left in the tank for the final game.

It is not as if Scotland have any form at Twickenham either, we have not won there since 1983 (did I ever mention that I was there!). We had had a crap season and no-one gave us much of a chance that year either if I remember, then the following year we won the GS. Can I see that happening this time though?

Only in my dreams!

So what do both sides hope to get from the game?

England clearly want a BP victory, some revenge for last year and hopefully a championship. They would also like to show the continued emergence of such players as Cockanasiga, who could be pivotal to them doing well in the WC.

Scotland, despite whatever spin they put on the game, might just be happy with a decent performance and continued development of some of our young starlets. We took another pile of injuries this weekend and getting a half decent competitive side onto the pitch is going to be a challenge in itself. Still, this exposure might be the making of young Hastings, Bradbury, Graham, McDowell, Skinner, Ritchie and anyone else who gets to play, down the line.

Test rugby is a hard old place to earn your living and they will likely be finding that out next weekend.



England


Daly, Nowell, Slade, Tuilagi, May; Farrell, Youngs; Moon, George, Sinckler, Launchbury, Kruis, Wilson, Curry, B Vunipola.

Replacements: Cowan-Dickie, Genge, Cole, Shields, Hughes, Spencer, Ford, Te'o



Scotland:

Maitland; Graham, Grigg, Johnson, McGuigan; Russell, Price; Dell, McInally (capt), Nel; Toolis, Gilchrist; Skinner, Watson, Bradbury.

Replacements: Brown, Reid, Berghan, J Gray, Strauss, Laidlaw, Hastings, Harris

Mikey called it

Well i dunno what to make of this. That's quite the implosion from England...

I'll take a draw happily frankly, though it begs the question, why haven't we played like this all tournament??

Right on cue.

Now settle down and get back to the game plan...and do the flippin basics right.

The ref does realise the ball has to go forwards for a knock on doesn't he?

Unfortunately Jones has leart from his mistake in Cardiff and has taken Farrell off.

Who put the tv on at halftime in The changing room, clearly they found out Wales had won

Our kicking game is so so poor. Finally Youngs is off!

Jeebus

Saaaammmmyyyy

Utterly appalling

I nearly had a heart attack there!

Aaaaaahhhhh!!!!!

Have i just entered a parallel universe!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Scotland will win this and we will never hear the end of this ever....

OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cole turnover looked OK to me ...

Oh wow...

Good grief. That tackling.

Speechless.

Heaf wrote:Cole turnover looked OK to me ...

Yeah it did to me also.

Yes i have!!!!!!!

I tuned off when England was 31-0 up to let the wife watch some house hunting program . Just tuned back in and am really wondering if am not in the f...ing twilight zone !
UNBELIEVABLE come back

Utterly embarrassing

This has comfortably been the most appalling 40 minutes I've ever seen from England at Twickenham.

Choke of the century

Has to be up there as a greatest comeback in history?

Well that's the most bizarre thing ever ...

A draw, it is like kissing your sister

Wow

What a ridiculous game

should have allowed the try in the corner.

An exciting draw.

#MoralVictory

That was completely mad.

When England are good, they are scintillating. When England are bad, they are fecking awful. An inability to play the full 80 has cost them this tournament, and is the biggest worry ahead of the World Cup.

Draw fair result

England dominated first half
Scotland dominated second half

So do Scotland keep the cup?

I think part of the problem is the motivation was gone.

Till Scotland have done well.

Is the 6 Nations Ireland and England getting worse or Wales and Scotland improved

Shocker from the ref there, but that was the proverbial game of two halves.

Duty281 wrote:When England are good, they are scintillating. When England are bad, they are fecking awful. An inability to play the full 80 has cost them this tournament, and is the biggest worry ahead of the World Cup.

Totally agree mate

We were saying let them score in the corner - much more difficult kick!

Eddie Jones face is priceless

sensisball wrote:should have allowed the try in the corner.

Thought the same thing . Still you retain the Calcutta cup .

Well never in my born days did i expect a draw today. i actualy thought England would win at a canter. But well played to Scotland for fighting back and almost, almost winninhg the game....Great game from both teams.

Phew - saved a draw at least - never seen anything like this before ...

RDW wrote:We were saying let them score in the corner - much more difficult kick!

I thought that when Nowell was going for the corner.

Great finish from Ford. He gave us an injection of something once he replaced Farrell. One of the worse performances I can remember from Farrell.

You know what I was saying about Toonie losing the dressing room!

I take it back!

He can certainly do a half time talk!

Probably got ptsd from that game

Some of the worst rugby I have seen from England. How they managed to scrape a draw...!? I feel for Scotland.

For the RWC England have a problem - and a lot of it is in their collective heads.

formerly known as Sam wrote:

RDW wrote:We were saying let them score in the corner - much more difficult kick!

I thought that when Nowell was going for the corner.

Great finish from Ford. He gave us an injection of something once he replaced Farrell. One of the worse performances I can remember from Farrell.

Yep - 2 tries given away needlessly ... I also still think his cross-kick at the end of the 1st half against Wales may have cost that game too.

So what did I miss?