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Six Nations 2024: Scotland v England Discussion Post

© Scottish Rugby Blog

Scotland

2024 Guinness Six NationsSat 24th Feb 2024Murrayfield, EdinburghKick-off: 4:45 pm (UK)30-21
England

England

Referee: Andrew Brace (IRFU)| TV: BBC Sport

Scotland play their second an final home game of the tournament. How did Scotland bounce back from the horrible loss to France? Did the Calcutta Cup remain safely in Scottish hands? Where it all go wrong/right?

Give us your thoughts on the game.

Please put your post-game discussion points on this post – bearing in mind our Comment Policy.

Please keep it on topic for the discussion of the actual England game itself and not immediately posting your team for next week.

37 responses

      1. You are entitled to your opinion as I am to mine. A constructive response would be much better than just ‘doom monger alert’

  1. Not great but we won. I’ll take that any day for a country with small resources. It feels like ‘job done’. Imagine that. I think of where we were 10years ago and am grateful of today and where we are. Let’s enjoy .

  2. Special mention today to James Robson. Unspoken hero and unassuming. Nice gesture for him to lift the cup for the team photo. Have a good retirement ????

    1. If every Scottish player and team had given as much and performed as well as James Robson then we’d have a trophy cabinet bursting at the seams.
      Best wishes to him

  3. We have to be happy with that win. Big positives;

    DVDM – one of the world’s best. One of our best ever & wow what an X factor he has.

    Finn – see above. He was outstanding today too

    Sione & Huw – Terrific. Completely outclassed their opposite numbers

    Negatives;

    Kinghorn under the high ball. He was terrible

    Millar Mills 2 pens in 5 mins when on for Fagerson in the first 10 mins. Badly need a good TH as backup…

    Ritchie again. Did zero except give away frustrating pens. No doubt Toonie will wax lyrical about him again though

    All in all a win was what was needed and we got it though…

    1. I am not a kinghorn fan , I do not disagree with anyone who prefers Rowe or Patterson, they have both given a good account of themselves : however we need to give Blair Kinghorn credit where it is due.

      I recall he was under a lot of high balls ! He is tall, got off the ground and in the air , he was in command of the space and England to their credit avoided touching him in the air to concede a penalty , however his technique was good , IMO. Yes he did miss at least one, I also concede that, not flawless, but who is !

    2. Millar-Mills was excellent. The scrum pen he conceded was an error by the ref, he’d minced Genge and forced him to hinge and the ref gave it the wrong way. The other one was more than redeemed when he was the excellent turnover in the second half.

    3. I’m not sure Miller mills offers anything our home grown props do but he wasn’t at fault for the 2 penalties. The first it was obvious Genge was boring in and hingeing, the second he was on his feet and going for the ball and over reaching, another ref may have given him the benefit and we’d have had the scrum penalty and the steal. He looked hungry in the last 20 when he came back on.

  4. Kinghorn?…Personally Id rather see H Paterson or Rowe selected at FB …just more composed players…as is O Smith.
    England targeted Kinghorn many times at the high ball….does GT not see how poor he is at it?..obviously opposition do…as do many fans. His timing is poor…and he consistently takes his eye of it.
    Why Ritchie is playing ahead of Christie I can’t figure out.
    Ashman was much more effective than Turner.

    Wins a win….but not impressed at the errors…coughing up turnover ball far too easily. We created much of our own pressure that we faced.

    France loss will cost us a pop at the 6N …unless England turn up better v Ireland and cause an upset…combined with the slim chance GT has actually devised tactics that can beat Ireland.

  5. Dearie me.

    Are you actually actively nd actually celebrating?

    Sounds like you’re in you bed all tucked up thinking we’re bollocks.

  6. What a load of negative bull. Watch again. Kinghorn under the ball was superb. He was smiling, confidence inspiring for his colleagues. He is a very good rugby brain. We just beat England, again, 4 years in a row, this time comfortably. Where do we really think we are in the rugby world. Weve kilts and big balls but we’re still a wee country and absolutely doing fantastic. Let’s enjoy.

    1. He was superb ! Such a classy player. I think he’ll divide the support like Maitland used to. He slots into the backline seamlessly and steps in like Hogg used to before he started trying to do it all himself though Cammy was just brilliant. You can see him and fin on the same wavelength. Both absolute ballers.

  7. Yes we have come a long way when we beat England and we arent totally happy. Good to beat England always and we did enough today. VDM is very special and was the difference.

    Just annoying that the french defeat probably wont give us a shot at the title – know it was always a long shot as Irish seem to be operating at a different level to the rest

  8. Don’t agree on Ashman, he gave away two penalties in as many minutes. Turner had a good game, still first choice imo.

  9. Lots of small errors but over all a win was hammered out. Love that we can be patient these days and find ways to unlock a side. Cummings was outstanding, moftm almost imo, Redpath also was excellent, Jones, And frankly Kinghorn was fine – not his most electric appearance but solid and definitely a good running threat. Lots of good play across the team, very much felt like a full team performance. Bravo lads!

    1. Redpath great break and was good barring Waboso try which was embarrassing defensively.

      Kinghorn had 3 eye off the ball knock ons from high balls, from 5 he went for. Thats not great and the good full backs from the big teams would have had far less errors. He’s a great running threat though but he has got to be better under the high ball.

  10. Can’t agree with the doom mongers on here. First half England Blitz defence left them looking brilliant and us absolutely hopeless absolutely everywhere. Except the scoreboard. Look at our tries – no one at home when it went wrong for England and we took full advantage of that. After that England were left highballing it and we could soak that up all day long. Of course you’re going to see individual errors defending that, but it led to so little I never thought we were going to lose……

  11. Delighted : It was not perfect , we were the best side. We were 10 points down and turned the score board around.

    I never felt we could lose from as early as 55 minutes , we showed maturity in closing the game out which is a breakthrough.

    We are improving by the game, that is also a positive sign.

    Line out : I dont get continually going to the back, less control and a lot of opposition jumpers to get through , for what? Come on lads, just restart the game safely , throw front or middle.

  12. Tremendous win and a special mention to DVDM – sensational.

    This game “was Scotland”, really struggle when team employ an effective blitz defence but can produce great things when given ball/wee bit space.

    The kick pass from Finn Russell was my favourite play of the game, simply genuis.

    Pre match I did really doubt whether England had any chance of winning this game – didn’t pick a team to kick so the blitz defence was always going to be employed, however this England team is simply not good enough, and so it proved.

    Upon reflection one poor referee decision may very well have deprived us of a shot at the Grand Slam

  13. Forwards held their own even against the much vaunted England bench. Redpath fitted in seamlessly and is a class act. Finn seems to have taken to captaincy really well, great rapport with the ref, good decision making and faultless from the tee. Good to see the call out for Huw as he was class. George Horne provided good control at the end. Lots to improve on with some harem scarem options when we needed to do the basics 1st. But really good team performance under pressure.

    1. Agree about Finn’s rapport with the ref. Little things like him offering Brace a drink from his bottle during a break in play and Brace gladly accepting. These little gestures go a long way. I couldn’t imagine Ritchie doing something like that.

  14. Well happy with that. We did exactly what we needed to do and learned our lessons from the last couple of matches. We always seem to struggle against blitz defences but England aren’t good enough at it (yet at least) to have caused us any real issues. Duhan, what can I say that hasn’t been said, just an absolute specimen and incredible athlete, the speed and acceleration he has are mind boggling for someone of his size.

    Unlike the France game we took the points on offer and that kept the pressure on England. Probably a few too many handling or silly errors for my liking but the general discipline was a lot better. Not sure about some of the criticism of Kinghorn, yes he spilled a couple of high balls which isn’t a great thing for a fullback but I thought he had a pretty decent game, not really much headline grabbing stuff but made some decent passes and ran some good lines, quietly effective I think would sum it up. Cam Redpath looked good other than that howler for the Waboso try, in his defence I don’t think he would have stopped him anyway, great line by Waboso.

  15. Lot of moaning about what I thought was a professional and entertaining performance and I thought Gregor got his tactics spot on.
    As a huge critic of GT after the Japan debacle he certainly has England’s number.
    We were burgled against France but we get another swing at them In a year. Congratulations to GT and the players who all fronted up.
    Finn the conductor a.nd what a player the big man is

  16. Great result, three fantastic tries, some great performances, and all capped with a wonderful gesture when the team photo was taken with the Calcutta Cup; it was lovely to see James Robson, who has been a terrific servant to rugby, given the Murrayfield send-off he deserves.

    Only niggle is that the first 15 minutes showed that we still seem to be confounded by blitz defences. Find the answer to that and we’ve a team capable of giving anyone a run for their money.

  17. So,a lot of greeting and whining engerlund fans saying that “Sno fair ,Scotland have more international players than us “…Get over it. We are just following the same rules as everyone else.
    We have a tiny amount of pool players compared with every other first class nation..Its not that long ago the arrogant Welsh were questioning Scotlands place at the table, so we did what we had to do, find world class players from wherever we could, always within the rules and now seemingly we are too good and shouldn’t be allowed to implement the said rules.
    I for one am enjoying cheering on a Scotland team who can compete with the best teams in the world who ALL have international players in their ranks.

    1. They Started it as long ago as 1936, Alexander Obilensky was a Russian Prince.

      The Premiership lost three teams and the remaining ones are stuffed full of players from the rest of the world. The home grown ones are not good enough to entertain the spectators.

  18. and lets face it we need a few South africans (and other nations) to follow the same path as VDM, Schoeman, Nel etc, especially as they seem very committed to the cause and great players

    Also makes sense for players to play in England and France to enable more playing time for the new generation to gain experience for Edinburgh and Glasgow
    .

    1. But we have just decided not to fund the Super Six , I am not clear on where the future new generation will be tested.

  19. Picked up a copy of The Times at Waverley yesterday expecting to read a more Scotland-focused report and comment on the match. No, it was all about how disappointing England were, blah, blah, blah. We weren’t brilliant on Saturday but at least we were there and, er, actually won the match.
    Just rewatched the game and, apart from the lapse allowing England their second try, it was an excellent second half showing and England were never really in it. Really controlled and measured. Play like that in Dublin and we’ve got a chance. Actually, we need to play like that in Rome too because Italy have really improved this 6N.

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