Steve Borthwick’s England reign launches amid litany of errors

Twickenham felt a little different on Saturday afternoon. It was the same walk from the station, by the same stalls on the Whitton Road, past the same faces, under the same sort of sombre February weather, to watch an England team made up, in the large part, of the same names that have been on and off the teamsheets here for the last few years. It was the air around the place that had changed. People were unsure exactly what to expect from the afternoon ahead except that, whatever else, it would at least be something unlike what they’ve seen from England here recently.

That promise didn’t last all that long. Twenty minutes after kick-off, things were feeling more than a little familiar again. And when it was all over, everyone was left facing the same old conclusion, too. England have an awful lot of work to do if they’re ever going to be anything like as good as people around here seem to believe they ought to be. They’ve now blown their shot at a grand slam in the opening round of the last four championships. They’ve also lost to Scotland three times in a row, something that hasn’t happened since the early 1970s.

Steve Borthwick had warned beforehand that England would make mistakes. But even he can’t have expected there would be this many. England’s handling was sloppy, their lineout misfired, twice, and, even more problematic, they missed an awful lot of tackles. There were, count them on your fingers, one, two, three, four, five in the space of just the few seconds it took Duhan van der Merwe to finish Scotland’s second try. It was one of the great ripping-roaring scores, a jinking sprint from inside his own half that left English tacklers throwing themselves around like they were trying to grab a greased piglet.

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