Ton English: It was the same old story – Scotland promised much and delivered nothing

THE silence was the thing. Minutes of silence at the end. Scottish fans standing their ground but saying nothing because nothing needed to be said. Away in the distance some English supporters sang, but it was Murrayfield’s deathly hush that was the most noticeable thing. Beaten again. Beaten just like last time and the time before and the time before that. “A bit like deja vu,” said Andy Robinson. Not a bit, a lot. “We’ve been here before,” said the Scotland coach.

If Hollywood ever remake Groundhog Day then they should come to Murrayfield to cast it. Robinson does a mean Bill Murray, never more forlorn than yesterday when the hangdog expression was on view again, when the pain of coaching the team that can’t score tries was writ large on his face. He invested huge amounts of himself in this game, talked it up, laid it on the line. No more excuses, he said. No more moral victories. Judgment season is nigh, he stressed. Indeed it is.

Did England win it or did Scotland lose it? Not to deny the visitors their moment, but more of the latter. Credit to England. They were tenacious and more together as a team than they had any right to be given they have spent just nine days in each other’s company. Seven made their debuts. So much for the importance of experience on such occasions. The thing that got England home was the commitment of their defence – “the desire to play for each other and to play for the jersey” said their coach, Stuart Lancaster – and the continuing catastrophe that is Scotland’s attack. They were also gifted a try by Dan Parks. Did Robinson regret picking him ahead of Greig Laidlaw, who improved matters at fly-half when he came on? “I’m not here to pull apart players,” he said. Yes, in other words. Laidlaw will surely start at the Millennium next Sunday.

If you weren’t watching, fear not. You’ve seen it all before from Robinson’s team. Many times. Scotland did what they usually do. Promised much and didn’t deliver. David Denton was a revelation and the heart goes out to him. This was Scotland’s fourth straight game without a try. For the 12th time in 13 seasons they have begun the Six Nations with a defeat. Robinson has now won two of his 11 championship games in charge and six out of 21 when you include his England years.

We can bemoan things, but the reality is that what ails Scotland is a failure of coaching, a failure to address the chronic inability to execute try-scoring chances when they come along, a failure that was profound yesterday, a failure that was the difference between victory and defeat. Again.

“We weren’t able to convert the chances we created,” said Robinson. “We had 14 line breaks. It’s a frustration we all feel. We have to keep working in training, keep putting guys in these situations. Ross [Rennie] made a great break, but credit to Ben Foden for stopping him. Richie Gray got through, but we lost composure. Jim Hamilton had an early break and we turned it over. I have spoken to Greig [Laidlaw, about the moment the TMO ruled he hadn’t grounded the ball for a second half try] and he feels he got a hand to it and got the first touch. The law states you need downward pressure and it looks like he got it.”

There was no bucket big enough to hold the hold the collective sickness that befell the Scottish fans in the aftermath of a match that only belatedly came alive. The Rennie moment – ignoring two men running free outside him and clattering into Foden, the last defender. – was Scotland in microcosm. He went through two English players, went around a third, accelerated into space and then, metaphorically speaking, threw up all over himself when it came to the moment to give the try-scoring pass. It was a staggering error.

The great appeal of the Calcutta Cup, of course, doesn’t lie in glamour and adventure, but belligerence and bloody-mindedness. It is to do with nationalism, naked and unadorned.

England’s first job was to quell Murrayfield’s noise. What we had here was a pre-match that crackled with anticipation and then minute upon minute of rugby of error-strewn rubbish that had you wondering who pulled the plug on the electricity. Murrayfield was quiet and up in the coach’s box Lancaster would have ticked a box in his to-do list. His team took the lead, then lost it, fell behind and then hit the front and stayed there. A charge-down settled it. Small margins, yes. But it’s not a coincidence that Scotland keep ending up on the wrong side of these margins.

In the midst of the joyless attrition of the first half – Parks kicking and kicking and kicking again, no doubt at his coach’s behest – we saw the problem. There was some rare Scottish possession in an attacking position inside the England 22 brought about a smart chip and chase up the left wing by Max Evans.

We’ve all been in this movie before with Scotland. And it is tiresome. They get to the 22, they truck it up, they go around the side, they spin it one way and then the other, they go nowhere only from side to side and from front foot to back. And then the moment passes. This is the way it has been for years and this was the way of it again. You’d call it heart-breaking if it wasn’t so damned predictable. The tragedy is that Murrayfield almost expects it now.

There are no crumbs of comfort in this defeat. None. Let’s not even go there. The fact that Denton was immense only serves to heighten the regret. He deserved better.

“We all look at ourselves,” said Robinson, when asked about Scotland’s endless wastefulness in the opposition’s 22. “This is down to us. We have to stick together. We look at what we’re doing and I’m accountable for that. I know my responsibility. It’s a team effort and we are going to solve it together. We’ll continue to work in that way.”

Words. Just words. This was another game lost that could have been won, a lament to be written on their sporting tombstone. It’s Wales on Sunday. The Millennium awaits the arrival of the team that cannot score and cannot win.