England Need To Go To Finishing School

England 25 – 13 Scotland

England have still got a chance of winning the Six Nations trophy, beating Scotland in a game which will be remembered for missed chances that we could regret not taking. We will have to wait and see in the title decider against France next weekend.

Tries from Jonathan Joseph, George Ford and Jack Nowell, but it should have been more as Luther Burrell, Nowell, Tom Youngs, Anthony Watson and Mike Brown all had chances to offload or delay their run and if these chances were taken it could have been a 50 plus win and that result would have been huge regarding points difference.

Ford, who had his best game to date in an England shirt and is really coming of age, has called for practice their finishing after admitting it will be a bitter pill to swallow should the Red Rose come up short next weekend saying “It was disappointing that we created so many opportunities but didn’t finish them off.

“We’re going to have to work hard to finish off these opportunities because it might come back to hurt us one day in an international game like that. If it hurts us in this Championship we will have to live with it, we are just going to prepare as well as we can this week that if we get the opportunities next week that we did today we will take them.”

This is what we have to do because, despite how the French having been playing recently, Les Blues will be coming to England full of strength and will want to put a marker down for the World Cup but we’ll worry about this after their game against Italy.

Back to the Scotland game, and it was hard for Stuart Lancaster’s men who went into the break 13 – 10 down after a well craved try by Mark Bennett brought Scotland back into the game, and it didn’t help we gave away silly penalties for Grieg Laidlaw to score.

At the kick off we saw something we haven’t seen from England this tournament we were on the front foot for a change as Burrell broke the Scottish defence in the first minute, but it was the first wasted opportunity as he failed to pass to Watson or offload to Ben Youngs. He also had a chance to set up Watson again on the half hour mark, only for Ford to pass forward.

Brown had two chances to get on the scoresheet either side of the half as he lost his boot whilst sprinting to the whitewash, but a try saving tackle by Stuart Hogg put an end to that dream return for the Harlequins fullback. The second half was an easier chance, but James Haskell was standing still and somehow managed to pass the ball forward.

Nowell had his chance taken away after making a good break before slipping and then in the second half replacement hooker Youngs also broke the gainline but there was no one in support.

Despite those negatives there was also a lot to be positive about in England’s performance. The first is the return of Courtney Lawes and it showed in the first five minutes how much we’ve missed his ‘no one shall pass’ defending which has become his hallmark along with his ‘Hulk smash’ big hits which are also a fan favourite.

It’s just not that, the Northampton lock’s workrate was to be admired and you wouldn’t expect it was his first game back for England since the Autumn Internationals playing the full 80 minutes. He was definitely Man of the Match.

The other player who was competing with Lawes for MotM was Bath fly half Ford as this was the game he came of age and ran the show with his kicking as the 21 year old was cool, calm and classy. He fully deserved his first test try and made umpteen chances and I can only see injury from stopping him becoming first choice fly half at the World Cup.

Those were the two stand out players for me against Scotland, but it was great to see the old Brown back and making a nuisance of himself in the high ball contest, while Nowell was getting into the game a lot more than a couple of weeks back against Ireland and getting plenty of ball in his hands. He too took his first test try well, but I’d still like to see Christan Wade playing on the wing.

Joseph also got into the game more adding another try to his collection whilst his partnership with Burrell is going to strength to strength and again if both stay fit then these two should be our centres for the World Cup.

Practicing our finishing will definitely be something to work on this week and I could see maybe an unchanged side, but there might be one player under pressure, which is Joe Marler as the prop gave away silly penalties in the scrum. Mako Vunipola or even Alex Corbisiero could come in for the Quins captain.