England's 12-test winning streak was shattered by Scotland pulling out an astonishingly one-sided 31-20 victory at Murrayfield in the Six Nations this morning.
England was favoured to win at Murrayfield for the first time since 2020, having developed a mighty bench and becoming well-drilled and confident during its longest winning run in nine years.
But English set-piece dominance was undone by sloppy handling in Scotland's 22, under pressure from having to play catch-up after a scintillating Scottish start.
Conducted by a masterly Finn Russell, Scotland blasted off to 17-0 after 14 minutes, its speed and slickness twisting an overburdened England into knots.
“I thought that was some of the best rugby we’ve ever played,” Scotland coach Gregor Townsend told ITV. “It’s all you want as a coach. I thought that was one of Finn Russell’s best games for Scotland and the work rate of our forwards was superb.”
England winger Henry Arundell received a 20-minute red card but his first yellow card was the most damaging. Scotland, emotionally up for the match against its oldest rival and out to redeem for a woeful loss to Italy last weekend, exploited Arundell's absence in the fast start.
It was too much for England to overcome. By the time of Arundell's second yellow card right on halftime, leading to the automatic red, Scotland was still up by 14.
In his second absence, Scotland out-scored England only 7-3 though it was a second try for center Huw Jones and Scotland's bonus-point fourth and last try.
“We are bitterly disappointed at that first 20 minutes, the lead Scotland got ahead of us and playing for such a long period with 14 men,” England coach Steve Borthwick told the BBC.
“The way Scotland can move the ball to the edges without our winger - it exposed us there and it gave us too much to do.”
Scotland and Townsend, on the occasion of his 100th test, were under fire all week after Italy humbled them 18-15 in Rome.
A sixth win (plus the epic draw in 2019) against England in nine match-ups, all under Townsend, will quieten the growing clamor for him to resign, at least until Scotland's final position in the championship becomes clear.
“There has been a lot of talk about Gregor Townsend but his players really showed up today, they really performed and really played for Gregor today,” Borthwick said. “They don’t play like that in every single game."
Townsend said of the importance of the win for the nation's fans: “We've given them something to shout about for the next 12 months.”
Russell in charge
Against Italy, Scotland made no line breaks. Against England, it made 10 in the first half alone.
Arundell was coming off a hat-trick against Wales but after he was sin-binned early for not releasing, Russell's one-handed flick on with Tom Roebuck in his face set up the opening try for Jones.
A Russell line break was followed by captain Sione Tuipulotu's huge pass to unmarked flanker Jamie Ritchie to stroll over.
Arundell returned from the sin-bin to score thanks to George Ford, who added a conversion and penalty, and England looked to be finding a foothold.
But Russell then switched the attack, stepped two defenders and chipped ahead. England prop Ellis Genge made a mess of grabbing the ball and Scotland scrumhalf Ben White took the gift over the tryline.
Right on halftime, Arundell took out leaping opposite Kyle Steyn and his second yellow card became a 20-minute red.
Ford started the second half with a penalty; he was perfect off the tee.
But his drop goal attempt was charged down by Matt Fagerson, who collected the ball and let Jones race to the posts at the other end. It made Jones Scotland's top try-scorer in Six Nations history since 2000 (18), and the leading try-scorer against England (8) in the same period.
Russell went five for five in goalkicking, a year after his late missed conversion cost Scotland a fifth straight win over England.
No. 8 Ben Earl scored a late converted try for England.
In an earlier Six Nations match in Dublin, Ireland, who lost to France in round one, squeaked home against Italy 20-13.
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