The game is finished and I am still trying to work out how it can have been such a close contest.
That is not meant in any way as a slight against the Scots. Thank you Scotland for the spirit and attacking verve that you brought. You gave this game an unpredictability that had not been expected. Not by me. I was, like the vast majority, guilty of thinking that England would walk this one.
The thing is, though, they should have. They should have been off and away and out of sight. They had more scoring opportunities here than they have had in their previous three games put together. Every which way England could have fathomed to butcher a scoring opportunity here, they found it.
Profligacy, thy name is England.
England won so much dominance so fast, they should have blown Scotland away. They strolled into such ascendancy, they had Scotland skewered. And yet, astonishingly, we had a match.
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England’s problem was all in the mind. Think clearly and Scotland are dead and buried, out of the game, destroyed. England were outstanding in the opening phase of the game, so fast, so dominant. And so inaccurate.
Stuart Lancaster must have been spitting with quiet rage. That England’s strong, dominant start produced so little was just flabbergasting.
The tone was set in the first minute of the game. Immediately, England are on the attack, suddenly Luther Burrell is through, there is a two-on-one, Stuart Hogg is the defender and Anthony Watson is on Burrell’s right.
Somehow, the lights go out in Burrell’s mind. The thinking stops and rather than draw and pass, he tries to go himself. Well done Hogg, you made the tackle. Burrell? What were you thinking? Or were you just not thinking at all?
So that is it. Pattern set: England dominate, England fail to ram home their superiority.
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The Scots were scrambling in those opening 10 minutes, hanging on for dear life. They should have been cut off and they were not, and thus did a decent two-sided contest break out.
England should never have allowed that to happen.