England 16 - 12 Scotland: Scots fluff lines once more

UTTER devastation. Nathan Hines in tears and being consoled by his team-mates. Dan Parks in tears and being comforted by other team-mates; two men, among many, in despair. There were Scots wandering around in a jaded and heart-breaking stupor; Sean Lamont sinking to his knees, Chris Paterson staring at the floor and then, soon after, the clincher of a team photograph, everybody, for some unknown reason, being asked to line up for the camera, with faces so grim that they’d haunt a house. A Kodak moment it was not.

Scotland were getting ready to pack their bags in Auckland last night. Sure, they were waiting on the result of the game between the Georgians and the Argentines, but barring a miracle they are out and Andy Robinson now becomes the first Scottish coach to have failed to get the country into the quarter-finals of the World Cup. This is a serious and indelible stain on his record.

They are leaving with a thousand regrets, that list added to at Eden Park with some critical plays that helped shift the balance of power back in England’s favour. There were two big ones. The first came just short of the hour-mark and it was a return to the horrors of Argentina in one head-wrecking detail.

They were leading 12-3 at the time, Paterson having put over a gorgeous penalty a few minutes earlier to bypass the golden winning margin of eight points for the first time. England restarted and, in a déjà vu moment, Scotland failed to gather the ball, à la Wellington last Sunday night, and handed the momentum back to their opponents. The English worked it up the field and got into drop goal range, whereupon Jonny Wilkinson put over the three points. At a time when Scotland needed to consolidate, they went to sleep. Everybody in their ranks later spoke about their failure to deal with that restart.

That was a massive moment on the night and there was another. With five minutes left, Scotland were leading 12-9. They needed to make something happen – and quickly. Parks, an early replacement for the injured Ruaridh Jackson, banged a penalty to touch. Scotland had the lineout on the England 22. And Richie Gray claimed it. They had two options now; to drive it through the phases and hope that a try-scoring opportunity would emerge or put over a drop goal to bring the gap to six and hope that there was another opportunity to get it to nine.

Instead, Parks found a third way – and it was a disaster. He put up a garryowen and it never came off. That, apparently, was in the gameplan. He was following orders. A few minutes later, England went downfield through their increasingly dominant pack and scored the match-winning try through Chris Ashton, converted brilliantly from the touchline by the replacement, Toby Flood.

Scotland will look back on this match, and last week’s Test against Argentina, and will have sleepless nights over two games that got away. They had chances to score against England and they didn’t take them. No tries in three of their four World Cup games? Can anybody justifiably say that they deserved any better than they got?

It was a hell of an occasion and a thunderous match. And it had just about the perfect beginning for Andy Robinson’s team. Robinson was hoping to inject some mayhem into the night and there was plenty of it here. England were harried and hassled into one error after another in the early stages. Scotland stole an early lineout and then won penalties at the first two scrums. The second infringement resulted in Paterson opening the scoring Scotland were playing at a frenetic pace and with an intensity that England were struggling to live with. Ashton gave away a penalty which was brought forward ten metres by referee Craig Joubert, a symptom of the problems at the heart of this England side, problems that Scotland exposed for long periods. Paterson made it 6-0 after more English indiscipline.

Paterson’s kick had to be referred to the television match official given its low trajectory, the ball clearing the crossbar with about half a centimetre to spare.

It was a terrific start for Scotland and a desperate beginning for England – and their plight soon got worse when Wilkinson started doing a passable impression of Mr Magoo when attempting his kicks at goal. He missed one in the 20th minute, missed another in the 23rd minute and missed a third in the 25th minute. Eventually, he landed one just before the break but even then Scotland were quick to cancel it out. A succession of England blunders – dropped balls and dropped scrums – gave the Scottish forwards the chance to trundle into a position where Parks found it easy to drop a goal. It was the last kick of the half, the Scots floating off the pitch, the English trudging off in a bit of a mess.

Graham Rowntree, the gnarled old prop who is on the England coaching staff, gave the front-row a lesson in how to scrummage during the break and clearly they listened to him. The scrum improved immeasurably and became a weapon, albeit one that they couldn’t take advantage of for the longest time

Twice in the space of two minutes at the start of the new half England shoved the Scots off their own scrum ball, but each time they escaped without losing points. This passage finished with Wilkinson trying a drop goal from easy range, but he missed it. The psychology of the moment appeared huge.

Scotland weathered the storm and came again. And chances were created. Simon Danielli chipped and chased up the left touchline and might have been in had it not been for Ben Foden’s intervention. Following up behind them was Nick De Luca who could have been over for the try had he not spilled the ball.

A killer for the Scots, but their pain eased when England collapsed a scrum under pressure and Paterson kicked the penalty to make it 12-3, soon to be followed by that fateful restart botch job and Wilkinson’s prompt drop goal.

Wilkinson’s penalty just after the hour brought it to 12-9, a scoreline that Scotland came close to changing dramatically soon after when a Parks crossfield kick to the corner sparked a race between Croft and Richie Gray, the Englishman just about winning it and saving his team’s skin. Wilkinson’s hopeless night continued with a fourth penalty miss.

The end game was now set. Parks chose the up-and-under and it didn’t come off, then England’s forwards got on top and began to rumble. Ashton, anonymous for so long, darted over from a long skip-pass from Flood and that was the game. Scotland’s dream died there and then.

England: Foden, Ashton, Tuilagi, Tindall, Armitage, Wilkinson, Youngs, Stevens, Thompson, Cole, Deacon, Lawes, Croft, Moody (c), Haskell. Subs: Easter, Palmer, Hartley, Flood, Corbisiero, Wigglesworth, Banahan.

Scotland: Paterson, Evans, Ansbro, S Lamont, Danielli, Jackson, Blair, Jacobsen, Ford, Murray, Gray, Kellock (c), Strokosch, Barclay, Vernon. Subs: Parks, De Luca, Hines, Rennie, Dickinson, Cusiter.

Referee: C Joubert (South Africa). Attendance: 58,213.