Scotland’s coaches and players believe two key officiating decisions potentially denied them another historic Calcutta Cup victory. Gregor Townsend feels his team were unlucky to concede the crucial second-half penalty kicked by Fin Smith that ultimately proved decisive and doubts have also been raised over the solitary English try, scored by Tommy Freeman.
Townsend was particularly unhappy about the crucial penalty given against Rory Darge and Tom Jordan for lifting Ben Curry out of a ruck. “I’m going to go through the game two or three times to see whether we could have got better decisions,” said Townsend, the head coach. “I did feel 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.
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“We’ve moved someone off the ruck and they’re two feet off the ground and there was no moving [his] legs above the horizontal. That was an interesting call for us to end up going six points behind.”
Members of his management team were also unconvinced that Freeman’s early try should have been awarded. “I heard the [other] coaches say it wasn’t grounded but I was on to the next thing, which was a kick-off,” said Townsend. Freeman was adjudged to have touched the ball down beneath a heap of Scottish bodies but smiled broadly and chose his words carefully about his try afterwards.
“The referee awarded it – therefore I grounded it,” said Freeman. “He awarded it so that’s the end of it really. I’m not going to say anything different. You take the points and stop asking questions. He must have seen it on the ground.”
Townsend, however, was at pains to stress that the French official Pierre Brousset had also played his part in ensuring a gripping contest. “I thought the referee did well. It was a very good game to watch, which would mean that the referee’s had a big part to play in that. Sometimes you’re going to get those decisions and sometimes you’re not.
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“We look at ourselves first of all and how we could have got more penalties out of England. And how we could have scored one, two or three more tries, which would have been a huge achievement coming down here. That’s what we probably should be looking to do with the chances we had.”
Steve Borthwick preferred to focus on his team’s second-half resilience after they had trailed 10-7 at half-time. England’s head coach said: “I’m obviously delighted that the endings have gone our way in the last two games and the team worked exceptionally hard for that. In many ways, it wasn’t pretty, and there were things we’d obviously want to do differently and better. But, ultimately, they found a way to win the game.”
