Steve Borthwick lamented England’s disastrous start against Scotland as they suffered more Murrayfield misery in the Six Nations.
The visitors found themselves 17-0 down after only a quarter of an hour in Saturday’s chaotic contest in Edinburgh, with Finn Russell’s early penalty followed by quick-fire tries from Huw Jones and Jamie Ritchie.
England saw Henry Arundell sin-binned for not releasing after a tackle during a tumultuous opening period, with the Bath winger receiving a second yellow card and 20-minute red for taking out Kyle Steyn in the air before the break, having got England off the mark with his fourth try in two matches after returning from a first caution.
The sloppy errors continued from England as they relinquished the Calcutta Cup once more, with Ben White profiting from Ellis Genge’s mistake to score Scotland’s third try and Jones later completing his brace in a key moment in the second half after George Ford’s drop-goal attempt had been charged down by Matt Fagerson to end any hopes of a comeback.
"Huge credit to Scotland, I thought they played really well," Borthwick said after seeing his side’s year-long 12-match winning run ended with a third consecutive loss at Murrayfield.
“Clearly, playing such a huge part of the game without a winger against a team that was moving the ball to that edge so much, that hurt us and ultimately gave us too much to do in the second half.
"What's typically been happening over the last period of time is we've slowly reeled teams in. When we played against New Zealand and were 12-0 down, we reeled them in, reeled them in gradually.
“Unfortunately, we gave them too much of a head start and gave ourselves too much to do today.”
While Arundell could have no complaints over his second yellow card, some felt that the first was a harsh decision from Nika Amashukeli.
However, Borthwick would not criticise the referee as he backed his player to bounce back quickly from a tough afternoon that followed a hat-trick against Wales on his first international start since the 2023 World Cup.
"To be honest, when I'm in the game, I don't spend any time looking back when the referee makes a decision," Borthwick said. "I go on trying to think about how we're going to deal with the situation.
"Henry's disappointed, as all the players are but I'm sure he'll bounce back."
