Key events
27 mins. Russell calls for the ball and spots some space for a 50:22 attempt. It’s sailing in the right direction but rolls into touch just short of the 22 which gives England the lineout. However the home side can’t secure clean possession but they eventually manage to get it clear.
There’s is the beginnings of a discontented murmur creeping around Twickenham
23 mins. More Scottish possession in English territory. This ends with a knock-on after a grubber from White can’t be gathered on the chase.
England appear to have ceased committing people to defensive rucks, meaning Scotland are having quick ball which I’m not sure is the best idea given what was outlined in the previous post.
20 mins. It is alarming for England who easily first phase gets outside of their defensive system. It will be long evening for them if Scotland can get to the line at will out wide.
TRY! England 7 – 10 Scotland (Huw Jones)
19 mins. A maul for Scotland breaks out of the kicking patterns and Itoje is penalised for creeping around it. From the lineout the ball is fired to Russell on first phase to put it through all hands to Duhan as quickly as possible. Jones is in support and is in the left corner.
Russell misses another conversion, but they are all from way out west so far, to be fair.
17 mins. Two drives, box kick. Repeat.
Tum-te-tum.
15 mins. The game settles a bit after the scoring start as possession is traded in the middle third. Scotland are having slightly more of it, but there’s not a huge amount being done with it from either team.
12 mins. Scotland are in the home 22, with the ball eventually moving to Kinghorn on the right who tries a pointless offload to Rowe who wasn’t ready for it and didn’t have any room to work in. It bounces off his noggin into touch.
10 mins. Both teams are already trading penalties at the breakdown as their combative backrows spoil possession and win turnovers. The latest is Ritchie setting up a lineout platform in the England half.
TRY! England 7 – 5 Scotland (Tommy Freeman)
7 mins. England hit back into the 22 via lineout. There are lots of phases after the initial drive, but they are one-out runners that are being contained by the Scottish line defence. Scotland are offside and on the advantage Freeman calls for the ball close to the ruck to force over under the attention of a couple of tacklers.
Marcus Smith adds two.
TRY! England 0 – 5 Scotland (Ben White)
4 mins. Russell stands up Lawrence in midfield around halfway and finds van der Merwe who rampages forward and offloads to Jordan on the left. The centre flies up the touchline and fires a great pass back inside to White who runs in unopposed.
Russell can’t convert it, but a fantastic start nonetheless.
2 mins. England have the first meaningful attack after van der Merwe can’t gather a Ben White box kick. The ball pops to Itoje who get his side on the attack, moving left to Slade who pins the Scots back with an angled kick to touch.
Kick Off!
Fin Smith boots the game to life, sending the ball deep into Scottish territory
Here come the teams, filing past the fabled Calcutta Cup into a decent London evening. Some anthems first, then some rugby.
Have a read while you wait…
Drop me an “>email with your thoughts on the match. Can Scotland do the five wins in a row?
Teams
One change made by Steve Borthwick to the starting XV that overcame France as Ollie Chessum replaces George Martin at lock. Martin was moved to the bench, but a late injury means he is replaced by Bath’s Ted Hill.
For Scotland, Finn Russell is passed fit to start after his clash of heads with D’Arcy Graham vs Ireland. The Edinburgh winger is not as lucky however and is replaced by Kyle Rowe. In the forwards, Pierre Schoeman returns at loosehead, with Rory Sutherland sent to the bench. Jamie Ritchie, who captained his side to victory at Twickenham in 2023, is back in the starting lineup, taking the place of Matt Fagerson who is among the subs.
England: Marcus Smith; Tommy Freeman, Ollie Lawrence, Henry Slade, Ollie Sleightholme; Fin Smith, Alex Mitchell; Ellis Genge, Luke Cowan-Dickie, Will Stuart, Maro Itoje (capt), Ollie Chessum, Tom Curry, Ben Earl, Jack Willis.
Replacements: Jamie George, Finn Baxter, Joe Heyes, Ted Hill, Chandler Cunningham-South, Ben Curry, Harry Randall, Elliot Daly.
Scotland: Blair Kinghorn; Kyle Rowe, Huw Jones, Tom Jordan, Duhan van der Merwe; Finn Russell (co-capt), Ben White; Pierre Schoeman, Dave Cherry, Zander Fagerson; Jonny Gray, Grant Gilchrist; Jamie Ritchie, Rory Darge (co-capt), Jack Dempsey.
Replacements: Ewan Ashman, Rory Sutherland, Will Hurd, Sam Skinner, Gregor Brown, Matt Fagerson, Jamie Dobie, Stafford McDowall.
Preamble
At some point in our lives and careers, we’ve all had a really bad day at work. For example, I once crashed an entire mortgage system because the overnight patch I’d signed off on tried to put a three digit code in a two digit field. It was the late 1990s, and the system was so old it was likely designed by Alan Turing – none of these excuses helped. But a few days later, they gave me something simple to do and I relaxed with the ease of this task and built some confidence back up.
Scotland arrive in south west London after Ireland put a terrifying rampant ghoul of a ghost in their machine two weeks ago and Gregor Townsend’s men will take some comfort that they have an easier job today. Beating England is something Scotland has become highly accustomed to, and they attempt to do it today for an historic fifth time on the trot.
England players and fans will not take kindly to this narrative, factual though it is, as they look to build on a dramatic, fortifying win over France in the last round; the forwards, led by a rejuvenated Tom Curry, coming into their own in the second half. Ireland showed that if you knock Scotland around a bit early on then the pressure splinters their plans, this could be a way for the home side to stop the recent losing run.
A tough one to call. Form and location marginally favours England, but that’s what the view prior to each of the previous two wins for Scotland at Twickenham. We’ll soon find out.
Kick off is 16:45 (GMT).
