Maro Itoje blew a huge sigh of relief as England laid their Calcutta Cup bogey to rest but the skipper admitted they had plenty to improve – while Scotland were left angry about Tommy Freeman’s try and are standing by Finn Russell.
Tempers boiled over at the end of England’s 16-15 win when Jamie George and Russell, who missed a last-minute conversion to win the match seemed to have a scuffle.
But shortly after that lock Itoje became the first England skipper since Owen Farrell five yeas ago to lift the trophy but England had more lives than a cat.
They hung in there and snatched a much-need win to leave the visitors gutted and Itoje hailing the warrior spirit of his side but admitting the close finish here, and against France were stressing boss Steve Borthwick.
The skipper said: “We want to be a team full of character and a team full of fight. These are good experiences for the team to go through.
“All these build the character of the team but it would be nice if it wasn’t as narrow at the end. Steve will lose even more of his hair if we keep doing this.
“The boys fought hard, it wasn’t necessarily pretty, it probably didn’t go all our way, they threw a whole load of difficult questions and scenarios at us and I’m just very proud that the boys stuck in there and we found a way to win.”
Scotland and England claimed not to have seen the incident at the end of the match but skipper Rory Darge refused to blame Russell, who missed three kicks, for the defeat.
Darge said: “Finn feels the same as all of us. There were loads of opportunities in the game aside from those kicks.” Head coach Gregor Townsend added: “Finn is an outstanding kicker and they were tough kicks.”
But they were fuming about Freeman’s try for England which the wing appeared not to ground properly. Freeman smirked: “The referee said I got it down. I felt like it went on the ground. He must have seen it on the ground.”
But Scotland boss Gregor Townsend added: “I’m going to go through the game two or three times to see whether we could have got better decisions. I heard the other coaches say it wasn’t grounded.
“We probably didn’t finish off enough opportunities when we got close to England’s line and that is credit to their defence.
“They hassled well and kept their discipline. I am so proud of the effort and the players nearly got the win. We could have scored three more tries with the chances we had and that is what we should be looking to do.”
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