A 15-15 draw allowed England to head back across the border with the Calcutta Cup still in their possession for the first time in six years and while Scotland’s captain admitted the match might have gone the visitors’ way, he felt his side had the better of a hard-fought encounter and ought to have won.
“With the amount of ball we had and the way we were playing we could have won,” he said. “It’s tempered slightly because they had a drop goal charged down and a missed penalty late on. Obviously the way the season has gone it was important to get a result of some sort, but we played good enough rugby to win that game.
“England defended well when we were deep in their 22, but if we were more decisive and more clinical we could have done better because we are getting good quality ball.
“We were in control for a large part of that match. In the first half we were causing them a lot of problems. The set-piece was good, the lineout went well and we made a lot of line breaks.
“It’s a strange result, but it could have gone either way and I think you have to be realistic about that. It’s not a massive disappointment but it’s not the victory we’re looking for and we go to Ireland with a lot of confidence. We feel confident we can match any team in the world if we play like that. Our defence was spot on again and we’re hard to beat.”
Andy Robinson, Scotland’s English head coach for whom the whole occasion was surely strangest of all, also felt his men were the better side, even though they failed to win for the fifth successive match and failed to score a try for the fifth time in six matches.
“We played some positive rugby and moved England around, but credit to their defence, they held up well,” he said. “I thought we created opportunities with the game we set out to play and also in the counter-attack. I thought something was going to give. However, once again we couldn’t get it over the line which was down to the English defence and us getting isolated. We put England under pressure and there were a couple of occasions when we chose the wrong options.
“What we saw today was an improvement from what we saw in Italy and that was important to everybody. There was really good shape and the guys have to keep playing the way they are playing.”
Martin Johnson, the captain with whom Robinson worked so closely as England’s forwards coach when they won the World Cup in 2003 but who is now his opposite number in the England camp, hinted at agreement that the Scots had possibly come closer to winning.
“I’m sure Andy’s come in and said they should have won,” he said. “From our point of view it wasn’t a great game to watch. It was very fractured.
“There were a lot of penalties and the breakdown interpretation was an issue, which it seemed to be in the [Ireland v Wales] game as well. That caused us a problem and kept us in our half for most of the first half. Defensively we were pretty good even though we missed a couple of tackles here and there.
“I thought when we had the ball in the first half we looked good, but we gave it back so cheaply. It was so frustrating. We either made a mistake and gave it back or tried a little chip-kick. We said to the guys at half time that the way the game was being reffed, the penalties were going to the team who held on to the ball so we had to back ourselves.
“We’ve played four and we could have won all of them, but we probably could have lost most of them as well. As a team we have to find a way to win. That’s part of what teams do. We did some really good things and we did some silly things in giving the ball back too easily at times. We relieved pressure on them with our own mistakes.”
