*England retain the Calcutta Cup
*Joseph opens scoring for England
*Bennett hits back with try for Scots
*Ford’s first Test try before Nowell puts result beyond doubt
*Wales end Ireland’s Grand Slam hopes
*England draw level in table with Wales and Ireland
6.57pm: FULL TIME England 25 Scotland 13
It certainly wasn’t pretty from England, though there were brush-strokes of genuine quality in amongst the beige impressionist dirge. We will have Alex Lowe’s match report up soon for you to peruse - until that climactic next Saturday, goodbye.
6.53pm: FULL TIME England 25 Scotland 13
So we head to the final weekend with three teams in with a chance. Realistically, given their massively inferior points differential, Wales will need England to slip up against France and Ireland to be beaten by Scotland. Lancaster’s team must rack up the points against the ailing French and hope that Ireland are at least held to a tight game at Murrayfield. It promises to be quite a weekend.
Alex Lowe (@AlexMLowe): Preview of the post-match presser. Lancaster - “We’ll take the positives”.
FULL TIME: England 25 Scotland 13
Surely the biggest positive today for England came in the performance of George Ford, who prodded and prompted and probed and was generally involved in everything good that England did going forward. England’s victory has them equal on points with Ireland and Wales and a hair’s breadth of a points differential in front of the Irish,h, who were stopped in their tank tracks by a bludgeoning Weslh effort earlier on today.
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FULL TIME: England 25 Scotland 13
“We probably butchered three or four opportunities,” says a mostly happy Stuart Lancaster, who adds that England did not know the result of the Wales/Ireland game from earlier.
FULL TIME: England 25 Scotland 13
Ben Youngs, the man of the match, says England’s aim of making a fast start came off today. “We did not want Scotland to come back and bite us - plenty to look back at on Monday,” he says.
ENGLAND RETAIN THE CALCUTTA CUP
FULL TIME: England 25 Scotland 13
79 min: England 25 Scotland 13
A bad mistake from Stuart Hogg, who throws an intercept to Nowell. England press for another score, but there’s no time - Poite whistles for the end of the game.
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78 min: England 25 Scotland 13
Ford missed the conversion - England are plus-34; Ireland plus-33 in points differential as it stands/ Penalty to Scotland, though, in a kickable position. They go for the corner instead.
76 min: ENGLAND TRY! (Nowell) England 25 Scotland 13
When the scrum is eventually contested, it goes England’s way - Geoff Cross crumbles, and Poite gives England the penalty. It looks simple, but Ford bangs it off the upright. England have another chance, though, from the rebound - the ball is recycled right; Ford throws a precise pass to Nowell, who bundles over in the corner.
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74 min: England 20 Scotland 13
Scotloand have to channel Steve McQueen and find a tunnel out of their 22. At the moment, they have a defensive scrum inside that 22-metre line - Romain Poute slows proccedings down by calling repeatedly for the scrum to be re-set.
70 min: England 20 Scotland 13
England have a penalty as Geoff Cross, a qualified GP, is caught offside. Before that, Nowell made a crucial tackle to scrag Fife’s ankles. England look to build through Robshaw, but again the midfield is let down by sloppy handling.
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68 min: England 20 Scotland 13
Rob Harley, unrelated to Steve, the Cockney Rebel, is on for Scotland. They have a lineout deep behind England lines - Seymour makes good ground, before Ashe, on for Denton at No 8, blasts up into midfield. Scotland’s execution fails them like it failed Mary, and England clear through Wigglesworth.
Owen Slot (@owenslot): Eng 2nd half repeating the first? Dominance, posssession, opportunity. And headless execution.
64 min: England 20 Scotland 13
England spin the ball wide to Burrell, before Brown concedes a penalty at the breakdown. Scrum to Scotland, who have to believe, against their better judgement, that they can still salvage at least a draw here.
Rick Broadbent (@ricktimes): On days when fans are frustrated, Twickenham is one of the least intimidating arenas in sport (or even the Twickenham area). #ENGvSCO.
61 min: DISALLOWED TRY! (Brown) England 20 Scotland 13
At first glance this looks a good score - Haskell hands off to Brown, who picks a super racing line under the posts. Unfortunately, the replay shows it clearly went forward from the flanker - scrum to Scotland, who are still very much in touch.
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60 min: England 20 Scotland 13
Scotland win the lineout and rumble on. They have freeedddoooom out wide, but Fife juggles and spills the ball. Hogg chips the ball on, hoping for a decent chase - but the ball runs out disappointingly like the daytime show of the same name. England clear all the way back to the Scotland 22.
58 min: England 20 Scotland 13
Stuart Hogg booms clear to the halfway line - Scotland are playing all their rugby in their half at the moment. Watson is through, like a half-forgotten actor celebrating commercial success in a leading role at the age of 55 - he has Burrell gawping to his left, but leaves him hanging like an Iowan high school quarterback stud ignoring the starstruck girl genius at a Des Moines prom. Now Scotland have the penalty.
56 min: England 20 Scotland 13
Geoff Cross has enough hair on his beard to keep an Edinburgh woollen mill in business for a year. He’s on for Euan Murray, who has to prepare not to play on Sunday. Ford puts hooker Youngs through the middle - the muscle hamster has space, but messes up his pass in the manner of a front-row forward.
Rick Broadbent (@ricktimes): England more concerned with winning than points difference as Ford opts for a shot at goal. Nails it. Ahead by 7. Needs to be 20 by the end.
52 min: England 20 Scotland 13
Hartley leaves the field for Youngs - as Finn Russell overheats the restart. England get the scrum on halfway, and shove with all their not inconsiderable might to win the penalty. Joseph springs Nowell on the left wing with an artist’s impression of a cut-out pass, as England keep barrelling away. But Lawes is pinged for offside, and Scotland can clear.
50 min: PENALTY TO ENGLAND England 20 Scotland 13
Scotland are scrapping for all their metaphorical sporting lives to stay in this as Russell hacks clear to the 22. Hartley with the lineout throw, and England have the penalty as Lawes is taken out in the air. Ford makes no error, stroking the three points. Parling is on for Attwood.
48 min: England 17 Scotland 13
This has been reverse-England today - they have started dynamically in both halves. Haskell is crunched in midfield by Euan Murray, but England come again. Brown, quicksilver today with front-foot ball, is almost through again before Niwell spills the ball, again.
Rick Broadbent (@ricktimes): Classy try from George Ford. England lead 17-13. Now can they avoid that self-destruct button.
44 min: TRY! (Ford) England 17 Scotland 13
Far, far better from England. George Ford takes the ball flat, shape-shifts to pass left before dummying inside and under the posts. He converts his own score.
41 min: England 10 Scotland 13
Jack Nowell begins the half glowing like a candle in a north Yorkshire Moor wind, wheedling his way through before spilling the ball like a toddler dribbling liquefied food down its bib. Jim Hamilton is back on for Scotland after a head injury assessment.
The teams are back out for the second half at Twickenham. A sizeable improvement needed from the Red Rose - Lancaster will surely have told them so in no uncertain terms.
Owen Slot (@owenslot): Hogg and Russell. Great attacking verve. Scotland should have lost this game in 10 mins. Deserve to be ahead. England’s brains left behind.
HALF-TIME: England 10 Scotland 13
Ireland’s defeat in Cardiff left the door banging in the wind for England. Of course, it also increased the pressure on them - perhaps one of the reasons why they laboured so badly in that first 40 minutes. Surely, surely, they cannot mess this up, even by the ever-deepening black comedy of English sporting performances.
Rick Broadbent (@ricktimes): After 10 mins you would have taken England to put 30 points on this #Scotland side. Of course, you should never overestimate #England.
England were ahead in the vast majority of these statistics after 20 minutes. Their performance slackened, however, while Scottish chests swelled - and Greg Laidlaw’s penalty has them, somewhat imporbably, ahead at half-time.
HALF-TIME: England 10 Scotland 13
Greg Laidlaw hacks the ball into the crowd - Vern Cotter will be most happy with that first-half display, I’d imagine. England were cutting through the Scottish midfield at will early on, and the first try from Joseph should have heralded a landslide. But Scotland grew in confidence, and Bennett brought them back level. England should still win - but the performance has been worrying.
36 min: PENALTY TO SCOTLAND England 10 Scotland 13
Approaching half-time, this isn’t going England’s way by any means. Scotland playing all the rugby - Hogg tries to bat the ball out of the air to Seymour on the left wing in a moment of pure inspiration, but it went forward. Scotland have a penalty, though, which Laidlaw knocks over.
35 min: ENGLAND PENALTY England 10 Scotland 10
England clear their embattled lines after the Scots err at the breakdown. Euan Murray appears in the loose, unusually - Hogg chips ahead; Seymour chases but Ford dots down in the in-goal area.
32 min: FORWARD PASS England 10 Scotland 10
George Ford releases Burrell with a cute pass - unfortunately, an amoebic life form in Andromeda could have seen it was forward. The crowd boo as Burrell fails to heed the whistle, because, well, sport pulls a veil over unbiased analysis. Scotland have a lineout deep in the England half.
30 min: PENALTY TO SCOTLAND England 10 Scotland 10
It’s that old adage - at the elite level of professional sport, you will be made to pay for profligacy. Scotland are level as Laidlaw tabby-strokes the penalty over.
Alex Lowe (@AlexMLowe): 10-7. Mark Bennett try. He’s been excellent this Six Nations. One chance, one try for Scotland. England are one from four.
27 min: England 10 Scotland 7
The scots have already improved on their Murrayfield performance from a year ago. They break down the right wing with the impressive Fife, before switching the ball left. David Denton rocks Vunipola back like a bulldozer bumping the Parthenon. Scotland are on the England line - Laidlaw waits, before Dan Cole rummages around the side to concede the most obvious of penalties.
25 min: PENALTY TO ENGLAND England 10 Scotland 7
Vunipola again does the damage, crunching up the middle and eating up valuable metres. George Ford has a penalty in front of the posts which he duly knocks over - England back in the lead.
Owen Slot (@owenslot): 7-7. England should be out of sight and 14 points clear already.
22 min: TRY! (Bennett) England 7 Scotland 7
Interesting. Very interesting. The England midfield gets sucked in from a lineout; Russell spreads the ball to Bennett who has plenty of room to sneak in at the corner. Laidlaw converts.
20 min: England 7 Scotland 0
England have made 43 carries to Scotland’s 14. I think that tells you eloquently about how this game has gone so far. Scotland spin the ball to Russell, who bangs a kick high into the air above midfield. Russell runs with ball in hand this time, spreading the ball wide to Fife, before Brown calls for the mark.
18 min: England 7 Scotland 0
England butcher another chance. This time it’s Jack Nowell cutting through midfield like a piece of Sheffield steel through warm Danish unsalted butter, but the Exeter wing trips at the crucial moment. Then David Denton throws a wild and woolly pass infield that flies over the beleaguered head Stuart Hogg.
16 min: PENALTY TO ENGLAND England 7 Scotland 0
This doesn’t Bode Miller well for the Scottish pack. England rumble in Twickenham’s suburban jungle from the scrum, and Poite gives a penalty. They go again, and this time it’s Joe Marler penalised for coming in at an angle.
Alex Lowe (@AlexMLowe): Sharp finish from Jonathan Joseph. Luther Burrell a relieved man after butchering earlier effort. Eng take early chunk out of Ire’s pts diff.
14 min: England 7 Scotland 0
Almost! Scotland are scythed open again as Mike Brown breaks through. He’s hauled down just short of the posts, before Lawes scrags Russell behind the Scottish line for a 5-metre scrum.
12 min: England 7 Scotland 0
Mike Brown fields his first high ball like a man reaching easily up for olives in a Tuscan grove. Dougie Fife runs an England grubber back, before Watson has his own little dart. Scotland turn the ball over, though, but kick the ball straight back to Nowell.
10 min: England 7 Scotland 0
George Ford is playing as flat as a super-compressed board of medium-density fiberboard. He almost sneak through again, though Scotland have a scrum as England knock on.
8 min: England 7 Scotland 0
Ford knocks over the conversion, though Scotland have a penalty as the England scrum wheels. They are playingh so far behind the gain line, though Bennett and Hogg combine well. England clear easily enough.
Owen Slot (@owenslot): Ah well. If you get this many chances... Ford/Joseph/Bath try. Scotland at 6s and 7s.
3 min: TRY! (Joseph) England 5 Scotland 0
England have started more like a Japanese bullet train than the Croydon tramlink here. And now they do score! Vunipola barrel-rolls up the middle, before great hands from Ford find Joseph stepping inside like a Margot Fontaine/Engelbert Humperdinck cross to touch down.
1 min: England 0 Scotland 0
Finn Russell kicks off - it’s a deep one, and suddenly George Ford is through. He ships the ball right to Luther Burrell, whose pace is not quite enough to take him to the line. Scotland on the shakiest of back feet, but Romain Poite pings England for obstruction. Exactly the start Andy Farrell wanted.
4.57pm: ‘Flower of Scotland’ has finished - now for the unfortunate English national dirge. Sorry, but it really is boring. A brief parp of fireworks, as Lancaster straps on his headset. Game on, almost. Just need to clear the enormos amount of props of the superfluous, non-rugby kind from the field.
Owen Slot (@owenslot): Game on for the Championship then. Eng need an 8 point win to lead tonight. I think they’ll be leading by at least 15.
4.53pm: The ‘game within a game’ at full back promises to be a fascinating one today. Mike Brown was missing as Alex Goode and Anthony Watson suffered under an aerial barrage in Dubling, but he’s back now as a reassuringly safe presence. Scotland have a livewire at 15 in the electric Stuart Higg, who this week accused England of a “lack of respect” for rugby north of the border.
4.49pm: Chris Robshaw has developed into a seemingly impregnable and undroppable leader for England. One thing he is not, however, is a scavenger - and every time he has a bad game, as he did last time out against Ireland, the murmurs over the continued exclusion of Steffon Armitage start again.
4.47pm: England have started slowly throughout the championship so far. Andy Farrell, the backs coach, says they have found the panacea for that malaise, having worked on it heavily in training. With a home World Cup just five months away, there aren’t so many more chances to get things right...
4.44pm: Vern Cotter looked to have Scotland improving coming into this Six Nations championship. Results have failed to back that up, though, with the nadir coming in a 22-19 loss to Italy last time out. In addition, Scotland have the kind of nightmarish record at Twickenham from which Freddy Krueger feeds. No win at the home of English rugby since 1983doesn’t inspire much faith for the current crop.
4.40pm: Scotland have David Denton back at No 8, though they are missing a giant centre-shaped hole in Alex Dunbar, who crocked himself in training in midweek. Finn Russell is back after a two-week suspension for upending Dan Biggar in mid-air.
4.38pm: England welcome back a couple of crucial names. Mike Brown is fit again, having revealed this week that he thought about hiding concussion symptoms in order to play against Ireland. Just as importantly, Courtney Lawes is back in the second-row engine room, with Geoff Parling ready as a replacement.
TEAM NEWS: England: 15 Mike Brown, 14 Anthony Watson, 13 Jonathan Joseph, 12 Luther Burrell, 11 Jack Nowell, 10 George Ford, 9 Ben Youngs, 1 Joe Marler, 2 Dylan Hartley, 3 Dan Cole, 4 Dave Attwood, 5 Courtney Lawes, 6 James Haskell, 7 Chris Robshaw, 8 Billy Vunipola. Replacements: 16 Tom Youngs, 17 Mako Vunipola, 18 Kieran Brookes, 19 Geoff Parling, 20 Tom Wood, 21 Richard Wigglesworth, 22 Danny Cipriani, 23 Billy Twelvetrees.
Scotland: 15 Stuart Hogg, 14 Dougie Fife, 13 Mark Bennett, 12 Matt Scott, 11 Tommy Seymour, 10 Finn Russell, 9 Greig Laidlaw, 1 Alasdair Dickinson, 2 Euan Murray, 3 Ross Ford, 4 Jim Hamilton, 5 Jonny Gray, 6 Robert Harley, 7 Blair Cowan, 8 David Denton. Replacements: 16 Fraser Brown, 17 Ryan Grant, 18 Geoff Cross, 19 Tim Swinson, 20 Johnnie Beattie, 21 Adam Ashe, 22 Sam Hidalgo-Clyne, 23 Greig Tonks.
4.34pm: Those are the fixtures for next weekend. Wales will fancy themselves to go to Rome and stack up points against the Italians, while Scotland will give Ireland a stiff physical test. England, depending on which France turn up, appear to have the hardest task.
4.31pm: Ireland’s defeat means Wales have drawn level with them at the top of the table on six points, though they have a far inferior points differential. England will join both those two at the top should they see off Vern Cotter’s Scotland today. Given the tournament the Scots have had so far, that doesn’t appear to be a difficult task. But they will surely raise their game against the ‘auld enemy’.
4.30pm: England must have thought, after their physical mullering in Dublin two weeks ago, that their championship hopes had died. Not so, now, thanks to that Herculean effort from the Welsh, who made over 250 tackles during the 80 minutes.
Owen Slot (@owenslot): Gripping contest. Passionate. Tense. Extraordinary Welsh defence
4.26pm: It’s all over in Cardiff - after a contest of quite staggering intensity, Wales have won 23-16. Joe Schmidt and Ireland hade been on course for a Grand Slam - now, if England beat Scotland, it will all come down to the final weekend.
4.25pm: Good afternoon and welcome to what promises to be a momentous penultimate weekend in this year’s Six Nations championship. England have not lost to the ‘auld enemy’ at Twickenham since 1983 - but after an appalling campaign so far, Vern Cotter’s side will be motivated to wreck the Red Rose’s championship ambitions.