GREGOR TOWNSEND insisted he felt proud rather than frustrated despite Scotland slipping to a first Calcutta Cup defeat since 2020.
The visitors outscored England by three tries to one but paid the price for Finn Russell’s inaccuracy off the tee, with the usually reliable kicker missing all three of his conversion attempts.
England, in contrast, made all four of their kicks and that efficiency from Marcus Smith and Fin Smith was the difference as the Red Rose sealed a first Twickenham win over Scotland since 2017.
Townsend, though, felt his players had performed admirably throughout the contest and believed their display was actually better than their winning ones here in 2021 and 2023.
The head coach said: ‘We felt confident as a coaching group that we were going to get a very good performance out of the players today. And it probably surpasses, performance-wise, what we’ve done here the last two or three times.
Finn Russell looks disconsolate after Scotland’s Calcutta Cup defeat at Twickenham
Head coach Gregor Townsend consoles Jamie Ritchie after the loss at Twickenham
‘Normally when you have that amount of pressure on occasions to score points, you get more on the board. So that’s a work-on. But I’m so proud of the group for that effort and that skill at the end of a game (when they scored their third try).
‘They did all they could to retain the Calcutta Cup but it was probably down to England’s defence and also them kicking their penalties when they got them in the second half.
‘I think it’s probably tougher for the players to take because to play well you have to put huge effort in and they did that. And to be at the end of a game knowing they came so close in the effort — I’ve been in that changing room before and it is very tough.
‘But we asked them to deliver on the effort, the execution, and they did that today.
‘We were very close to getting a historic win and, whether it was a kick or another decision at the end of the game, we’re all going forward. We’d like to be talking about a brilliant win but we’re not. And that’s credit to England for staying out in front at the end.’
Townsend revealed some of his coaching staff had questioned whether Tommy Freeman had grounded the ball for England’s try and felt Scotland hadn’t got the rub of the green at times from the French referee, Pierre Brousset.
‘I didn’t really look at it but I heard the coaches say it wasn’t grounded,’ he added. ‘But I was on to the next thing which was a kick-off.
England captain Maro Itoje lifts the Calcutta Cup after their 16-15 success over Scotland
‘I’m going to go through the game to see whether we could have got better decisions. I did feel that the decision that counted against us for the winning three points, where we cleared someone out of the ruck, I just don’t know how that’s a penalty.
‘We’ve moved someone off the ruck. There were two feet off the ground and no moving legs above the horizontal. That was an interesting call for us to end up going six points behind.
‘The referee did well. It was a very good game to watch, which would mean that the referee’s had a part to play in that. Sometimes you’re going to get the decisions and sometimes you’re not.’
The defeat ended the already slim possibility of Scotland winning the Six Nations but Townsend insisted it wouldn’t be difficult to raise his players for the two final matches against Wales and France.
He added: ‘I think it won’t be too difficult (to lift them) because we asked them to show who we are as a team today and I believe we did that. So, a lot of what we worked on and what we showed today, we’ve got to bring that out in the next two games. They will be tough challenges.
‘I watched a lot of the Wales game today, they played very well. And we know we’ll have to build on what we did today.
‘And then there’s Paris, which will be a very tough game against France. But how we played today away from home shows that we can create and score tries against a very good defence.’
Co-captain Rory Darge added: ‘It’s obviously a tough result to take in the end. When a game is as close as that, and you obviously put in so much effort throughout the week, and then to come out on the wrong side of the result, we’re gutted.’
