Andy Robinson tried to take the heat off under-fire attack coach Gregor Townsend but the squad are under severe pressure to salvage their 6 Nations after another sickening failure in Saturday’s Calcutta Cup game.
Despite an overwhelming superiority in possession, territory and scoring chances, Scotland were left try-less for the fourth match in succession, while an error by fly-half Dan Parks produced the try that allowed an unimpressive England to leave Edinburgh with their first win at Murrayfield since 2004.
The stat count was almost incredibly stacked in Scotland’s favour four times as much attacking ball, more than three times more passes completed, England forced into 142 tackles compared to Scotland’s mere 62 but a combination of poor decision-making, bad execution and often downright confusion meant the Scots were confined to two first-half Parks penalties.
“We’re all accountable,” said Robinson at the suggestion Townsend’s record in three years as attack coach requires scrutiny. “It’s a team effort and we’ll look at how we’re going to solve this together. We will continue to work in that way.
“I understand the frustration but we’ve got to look at what we’re doing as a group,” added the coach. “I’m accountable for that and I know my responsibility there and we will keep working at it.”
The squad all spoke of ”tiny margins”. However, Jim Hamilton, one of the successes of a strong pack performance that went unrewarded, conceded that the ”no excuses” mantra prior to the game in the Scotland camp after the similar contests against Argentina and England in the World Cup left them with no other explanations.
”That’s the frustrating thing for me as a player. How many times can we keep speaking about could have been, should have been?” said the big lock. ”It’s the story of our life. Everyone can see we’re making chances, how much we want to win and are putting in the hard work but ultimately we’re not putting them away, and until we address that and until it happens, it’ll just keep happening.”
He added: “We take our chances today, we win by two or three scores. We have to find out what’s going wrong in eight days and fix it if we want to go to Cardiff against Wales and win. I don’t imagine we can go there and win 6-0.”
Hamilton does not believe there can be wholesale changes because it’s already been done.
”There’s a lot of talent. Look at the new guys we brought in Dave Denton gets man of the match,” he pointed out. ”We saw at the World Cup with all the chopping and changing, guys were just left unsettled.
”It has to come from the players. The coaches have given us the tools and this is not an under-20s team it’s not a team full of kids. We’re professional rugby players who are playing well for our clubs and scoring tries and we know how to do it, but every time we play for Scotland it seems it’s not happening.”
Denton, in his first start, did well at No 8 and made some thunderous runs but was left bereft by the result.
”I was pleased to get the award, but it doesn’t mean anything as we didn’t win the game,” said the flanker, who turned 22 on Sunday. ”It was more near misses and that seems to be always the case.
”Our attacking play was good, we made chances, and when one try comes I believe we start to finish things off regularly, hopefully we can get it going for next week.”
Denton is among half the squad who will be under 48-hour supervision after taking knocks, with flanker Richie Gray, centre Nick De Luca and lock Alastair Kellock all described as suffering from ”significant” dead legs.
Photo by Lynne Cameron/PA Wire