England v Scotland The Calcutta Cup Saturday 6th February 2021

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England v Scotland
The Calcutta Cup

Twickenham Stadium
London

Saturday 6th February 2021
KO 16.45


Well here we go for a 6n opener.

It is going to be a slightly odd one no doubt, playing this game in an empty stadium. It has been said in the past that Twickenham lacks atmosphere a bit, but we won't have seen anything on this scale.

As usual, it will be England's game to lose. Twickenham has been a graveyard for Scottish sides for a long long time. In terms of hope though for us Scots, the last few games have been a lot closer than usual and who can forget the madness of the last time out, the ultimate game of two halves.

England are missing a few players and there has to be some questions about the match prep of some of the Saracens players, who have not played since the autumn. How they get on in this game will be the great question mark hanging over this game and may set the tone for England over the entire championship. I would imagine Scotland will be pleased to be playing them first up in all honesty.

On the other hand, do Scotland, who with Finn Russell back and pulling the strings and looking a stronger proposition than in the autumn, really believe that they can win in London. They are also largely injury free. It would be a massive step forward for them as a team if they could do that. It remains unclear though and the smart money is still going to be on an England win, albeit likely a scrappy one.


Here is my stab at the Scotland team:

1. Sutherland
2. Turner
3. Fagerson Z
4. Cummings
5. Gray J
6. Ritchie - If fit, but Toonie making promising noises on that front
7. Watson
8. Fagerson M
9. Price
10. Russell
11. Maitland
12. Redpath - I think Toonie will roll the dice
13. Harris
14. VDM
15. Hogg

Subs

Keeble
Cherry
Nel
Gray R
Graham -might have been in the side if not playing this sunday
Steele
VDW
Jones H


The big calls for Toonie are at 12 and No.8

Redpath looks ready and I think he should play him. Graham might have to wait a week, as i think playing today might well count against him, so let Matt Fagerson have the first bite of the cherry.

GeordieFalcon wrote:Sorry Eddie but THAT was bad.

He really needs to sort this out.

 It's almost like you could see it coming from the awful team selection...

Very well done Scotland - fantastic performance. Totally dominant and scoreline flattered England.

Great win for Scotland!
Doom on England.

Excellent win by Scotland. Well done lads.

What a kid I got, I told him about the birds and the bees and he told me about the butcher and my wife.

Eddie has to take massive responsibility for that dire performance.

Well done Scotland.

England were garbage. A continuation of that awful display we saw against France in the autumn. Jones needs to revert the tactics to a more possession-based game.

congratulations Scotland, well deserved win.

Southern Hemisphere is laughing at us again. What an awful game. Two poor sides. Like bald men fighting over a comb. Time to start over and hope we can catch up again. Probably better for England as Scotland will maybe think this was good for their rugby.

NZ/Aus/SA will pick us apart.

Well all this money in the bank is gone....

Billy V, Farrell .....sorry but their automatic selection is over.

Slade...a good club player...not an international.

Fair play Scotland, definitely the better team on the day.

I thought Jonny Gray and Hogg were excellent throught. Redpath had a solid debut. Hamish Watson as well I thought was very good in a game that perhaps didn't suit his rampaging style.

Ps Congratulations Scotland...sat with my scottish mother and shes over the moon

Well done scotland. Dismal game from England. Very rusty yes, but we really need significant changes now. I know also that Scotland didn't let us play

We have the ball and decide to kick it away...do we think we're at a defence practice session???

Its Farells default option - no one obvious in space?  Kick it rather than take the tackle and set it up 3 times I saw him kick the ball away when in the 22

Fabulous win for Scotland - dominated the game in every area

That was about as poor as ive ever seen under Jones from England;

As Duty said the sheer amount we have regressed is worrying especially given the talent across the board (seen regularly at domestic level)..

Could argue that outside of the NZ performance, some signs were already around during the World Cup..

Jones starting to remind me very much of Mourinho; the mental side of the game he was so far ahead yet once teams find that out or players stop buying into that pyschology then as pure coaches they look a little lost.

Jones fancies himself a bit of a revolutionary thinker, the problem is he is stubborn as hell to boot (a trait often found in those of total & utter belief in themselves) and thats costing England massively now...fear we will only continue to go backwards at this point.

Lucky to only lose by 5 ...

Italy will never have a better chance to beat England...

England must be disappointed that they have been shown to be lacking ideas once the fronts didn't have momentum. Does this mean England are just a more powerful Ireland.

They really need to sort out some backs play as it seems England's game plan was to just kick it and hope the chase could make something happen.

To be fair though a few charge downs could have resulted in an ease England win

Congratulations Scotland...absolutely the best team today

Well played Scotland

Nice touch from Hogg letting the new caps lift the cup

Eddie there is a bloke at my local club who hasn't played this season, he has put on a couple of stone in lockdown but I'm sure he could fit in the team just like Billy V.

Do you want his number for the Italy game?

What is the take on the Sarries players. Itoje was a stand out player but not sure if the others were better or worse

At no point until the whistle went did I allow myself to believe we would win that, what a feeling! Fair play Toonie, I’m a massive critic but signs he might be stepping up. Let’s see how we build from this.

Also well played to the England fans on here, class reaction in the face of what must be huge disappointment. You’d obviously expect to see much more from the amount of talent in your side. Tactics are horrible and Eddie can bristle about it all he wants it’s time for him to earn his money

Well played Scotland. Brilliant pressure.

Farrell, Youngs and Daly should be rested until they can come up with a better gameplan. May was woefully off form. If I was Ollie Lawrence I would be punching Farrell as he got the ball about twice. There is no X Factor anywhere in the backline. We need a Cokanasiga, or an Odogwu - at least they have the pace and size to build something with. There is a total lack of ideas in the back line. A spark is needed. It was like France all over again. Slade did nothing. Daly's one on one tackling is woeful. He left it to the others to tackle the big South African. Pathetic.

About the only players who seemed to play well were Lawes, Cowan-Dickie, Earl and Itoje. Everyone else was a bit "meh". Saracens players were dreadful.

Kick chase? Forget it.

Cyril wrote:Southern Hemisphere is laughing at us again. What an awful game. Two poor sides. Like bald men fighting over a comb. Time to start over and hope we can catch up again. Probably better for England as Scotland will maybe think this was good for their rugby.

NZ/Aus/SA will pick us apart.

I think only Aus and NZ would have not enjoyed it. Argentina, SA and the PIs love a good physical battle.

Having seen the 3N not sure any of those 3 sides could have put in the phyisicallity needed to make England look average. Scotland's pack has beefed up quietly over the last few years.

Brendan wrote:What is the take on the Sarries players. Itoje was a stand out player but not sure if the others were better or worse

I don’t get the 50/50 calls going for them. Itoje is a classy player so could see why he was picked.

England have players like Dombrant who could have gone in instead of Billy.

Luke Cowan dickie was much much better than George. Given there’s hardly anything between them at the best of times it’s just mental that George got the start when he’s not played rugby in months.

First of all well done Scotland,  thoroughly deserved no arguments.  

Secondly,  WTF was that? We have no ball all game and Farrell dribbles the ball into their back threes arms?!

That is literally the worst I've ever seen England play. No energy, no direction.  How could Eddie wait until the 65th minute to bring Ford on? It's been a rubbish week for me personally,  and that caps it off. I'm speechless.

Can anyone explain how England's penalty count was so high. It seems like England were up for it but just made some bad calls.

Just finished watching after a mid match break. Hate being proven horrendously correct. Wilson youngs Daly hopefully consigned to history.

Brendan wrote:Can anyone explain how England's penalty count was so high.  It seems like England were up for it but just made some bad calls.

Pressure. And once a couple had gone to Scotland the ref was even hotter on it. No complaints.

There were some dubious calls by the officials but not enough to explain that performance ...

Brendan wrote:What is the take on the Sarries players. Itoje was a stand out player but not sure if the others were better or worse

Itoje - excellent, as usual.
George - meh
Farrell - sub meh
Billy V. - mega sub meh
Ford - not enough game time to be meh

Superb win for Scotland. England thoroughly dominated by them.

Enjoy Scottish fans. Well deserved.

I’m proud of that - Scotland weren’t lucky - they just kept the pressure building and executed an intelligent game plan pretty well throughout. Really lovely to see form players at club level taking that into test matches because we have historically not been good at doing that.

Will be interested to see to what extent Eddie plays the ‘we were just rusty’ card.

Well I can no longer say that I was at Twickenham the last time Scotland won there in 1983

Have waited a long time to say that and am very happy to do so!

doctor_grey wrote:

Brendan wrote:What is the take on the Sarries players. Itoje was a stand out player but not sure if the others were better or worse

Itoje - excellent, as usual.
George - meh
Farrell - sub meh
Billy V. - mega sub meh
Ford - not enough game time to be meh

Itoje was a penalty machine - hardly excellent

George Carlin wrote:I’m proud of that - Scotland weren’t lucky - they just kept the pressure building and executed an intelligent game plan pretty well throughout. Really lovely to see form players at club level taking that into test matches because we have historically not been good at doing that.

Will be interested to see to what extent Eddie plays the ‘we were just rusty’ card.

Will need more than a stiff wire brush to get that rust off if that's what it was ...

hugehandoff wrote:

doctor_grey wrote:

Brendan wrote:What is the take on the Sarries players. Itoje was a stand out player but not sure if the others were better or worse

Itoje - excellent, as usual.
George - meh
Farrell - sub meh
Billy V. - mega sub meh
Ford - not enough game time to be meh

Itoje was a penalty machine - hardly excellent

He had no help whatsoever. Trying to do too much. Because he had to.

At least we dont have to put up with the Russel vs farrell debate. Awful england performance and Farrell still outshone russell.

Congrats Scotland. The better team from what I saw

What a win! So incredibly happy and proud of the players. It wasn't just a few magic tricks by Russell or a stunning break by Hogg but a total deconstruction of the opposition by the entire team. The set piece, the dominant tackles, territory, line breaks.. I doubt I'll witness a better Scottish performance than the one I saw today in terms of stats. Total dreamland!

Commiserations England fans, it was a tough day and May knocking on from a long Hogg kick at the end pretty much summed it up. I suspect they'll bounce back but you have to wonder, why do Eddie Jones's England keep having these meltdown moments? They should have performed better and I think us Scotland fans know they had a bad day and it by no means guarantees we'll win against Wales next weekend.

England
35% Possession
30% Territory
15 penalties
27 missed tackles
0 clean breaks

No 7&1/2 wrote:At least we dont have to put up with the Russel vs farrell debate. Awful england performance and Farrell still outshone russell.

What game were you watching? Ford was far better than Farrell and probably brought parity against Russell. Not even better. Farrell kicked straight to Stuart Hogg trying to chip through, Russell made several excellent passes and kicks. Yes there were mistakes but you can't seriously say Farrell was better today.

NeilyBroon wrote:

No 7&1/2 wrote:At least we dont have to put up with the Russel vs farrell debate. Awful england performance and Farrell still outshone russell.

What game were you watching? Ford was far better than Farrell and probably brought parity against Russell. Not even better. Farrell kicked straight to Stuart Hogg trying to chip through, Russell made several excellent passes and kicks. Yes there were mistakes but you can't seriously say Farrell was better today.

I watched Russell get a ball on a plate and do nothing bar the horrible trip.

Duty281 wrote:Italy will never have a better chance to beat England...

Don't be ridiculous.

Steve Tandy doing some job for Scotland. Perhaps we should’ve got him instead of Humph

Hang on Jamie George said England were going to dominate teams upfront??????

What happened.

Seriously, are Scotland fans thinking this was good by either side? It was an awful advert for NH rugby. Rusty, no attacking flair and a game that was as flat as a pancake (understandable given the terrible circumstances). Still, greed will out. Anything to get these games played.

Always an asterisk against these fixtures.

Cyril wrote:Seriously, are Scotland fans thinking this was good by either side? It was an awful advert for NH rugby. Rusty, no attacking flair and a game that was as flat as a pancake (understandable given the terrible circumstances). Still, greed will out. Anything to get these games played.

Always an asterisk against these fixtures.

No asterisk needed. No need to pretend either. It's a big deal for scotland so of course they're going to make the most of it. England just need to ensure they learn the lessons and implement the fixes.