Two years ago Scotland started against England here, following a rousing rendition of Flower of Scotland, like a deflated set of bagpipes. This time they matched their crowd and were at full bellow as they played with a sustained, controlled fury to record their first victory over the Auld Enemy for 10 years and throw open the championship.
They scored three tries, having not managed one against England here since 2004, and took the game to their opponents from the kick-off. What was ultimately decisive was the ferocity of their defence, summed up by the penalty-winning tackle made by the hooker Stuart McInally near his own line with two minutes to go. It was a victory fashioned at the breakdown and chiselled by grit.
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John Barclay and McInally controlled the tackle area, denying England quick possession and fracturing the champions’ supply line, Simon Berghan anchored the scrum and behind Finn Russell, missing in action in the opening two rounds, fulfilled his captain Barclay’s prediction on the eve of the game that he would be the man of the match.
Russell created his side’s three first-half tries, ruffling a defence known for its composure, and dictated the match from the off. He used his first two touches of the ball to send front five forwards down the England fly-half George Ford’s channel and a player who against Wales and France seemed intent on living up to a reputation here played what was in front of him.
He fashioned the first try after 15 minutes, moments after Owen Farrell had equalised Greig Laidlaw’s opening penalty, with a chip in behind the rush defence. The ball struck Huw Jones on the shin, wrong‑footing Jonathan Joseph who could only watch his opposite number pick up and dive over.
The third try came from a similar position but this time Russell spotted too large a gap between the No 8 Nathan Hughes, who looked off the pace after returning from injury, and Farrell. His pass invited Jones to run through it and get into a stride so that when first Mike Brown and then Anthony Watson got to the centre his power carried them with him to the line.
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Jones was also involved in the second try, which started when Russell received the ball near his own 22 and immediately detected that England’s defence was narrow, with Jonny May having strayed infield. Russell passed the ball 40 metres to Jones, who had only space in front of him on the right wing. He was hauled down in England’s 22 but, when the ball was quickly recycled, Russell’s miss-pass gave Sean Maitland the room to score in the left corner.
England went into the interval 22-6 down, a second Farrell penalty their only response to Scotland’s burst of tries. They had not conceded more points in a Six Nations match in the Eddie Jones era and when the whistle blew for the interval, Dylan Hartley formed his players into a circle to deliver a rallying cry. They duly won the second half but by nowhere near enough, having for once come up against a team here that were not prepared to roll over.
They talked beforehand about knowing what to expect and were in no doubt after a scuffle in the tunnel as the teams left the field after the warm-ups, with Farrell and Scotland’s No 8 Ryan Wilson reported to be involved. The match was only a few minutes old when the second-row Jonny Gray squared up to Hartley and invited Courtney Lawes to join in. The message was clear: a side that had not won the Calcutta Cup for 10 years were going to fight for everything.
And they did, right until the end when, with the game won, they prevented their opponents from mustering a bonus point. England’s only other defeat under Jones was in Ireland last year when they were outgunned at the breakdown and their half-backs struggled to make much of slow ball. That reduced the effectiveness of Farrell and he was again too peripheral for his side’s good. He scored his side’s try three minutes into the second half after Danny Care spotted Grant Gilchrist covering too much space on the blind side and was denied a second after 54 minutes when Lawes was ruled on review to have knocked on in dispossessing Barclay.
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Jones has used his bench as finishers and repeated last year’s ploy that helped overcome France when he brought on Ben Te’o for Ford. Hartley and Brown had already gone off, along with Hughes, whose replacement Sam Underhill was making an impact at the breakdown when he was sent to the sin-bin for a no-arms tackle on Barclay.
Scotland would have wrapped up victory if Peter Horne had not squandered a three-man overlap but Russell’s penalty gave them security. England kept coming but there was a surprising raggedness about them. The injury suffered by Ben Youngs on the opening weekend in Italy has robbed Jones of a key part of his finishing strategy. Te’o may have scored the try that took England to victory over France last year, but Care injected pep at the same time, as he has time and again from the bench. Richard Wigglesworth offers something completely different from the bench at scrum-half. This, then, was a day for Finn rather than the finishers.