CALCUTTA CUP REPORT: The last step towards a Grand Slam is always a giant leap for England but the planets are now in tantalising alignment. If the Calcutta Cup remains a worthy prize there has never been any doubting Clive Woodward's main target and the countdown to next Sunday's Six Nations Championship decider in Dublin has already begun in earnest.
The six-million euro question, of course, is how England will respond to exactly the kind of screeching pressure away from home that has proved their downfall in their past Grand Slam failures at Wembley, Murrayfield and Lansdowne Road. If they were playing at home, where they are now unbeaten for 21 games, they would be virtual certainties but the visitors will still fly across the Irish Sea on Thursday less in hope than genuine anticipation.
Part of the self-belief evident on Saturday night can be put down to experience, for England sense they are stronger for their disappointments. There is also a view that the heady expectation surrounding Ireland, less accustomed to such seismic occasions, could assist the visitors.
Self-evidently, too, this hugely solid England side have yet to play to their potential in this championship, with a no-nonsense dismissal of the Scots in which they scored four tries and conceded nil another ominous example.
Lest anyone forget, a lingering desire still burns to make amends for England's last visit to Dublin in October 2001, when they were beaten 20-14 in a championship finale delayed by the foot-and-mouth epidemic.
Complacency can be disregarded, whoever plays. "It's going to be mad over there," said England's captain Martin Johnson who, along with Richard Hill and Steve Thompson, worked as tirelessly as any to subdue the initially lively Scottish forwards. "They're in with a chance of winning the grand slam for the first time in, what is it, 55 years. It's going to be massive."
Nor was Woodward upset by Ronan O'Gara's late drop-goal in Cardiff, insisting he always wanted a winners-take-all showdown. "Whoever wins can go to the World Cup in good fettle," he said. "Every grand slam game is big but in World Cup year it will set the winners up fantastically."
However, if the likes of Brian O'Driscoll are to send all Ireland into orbit, they will need a decent first-half platform. With the exception of Italy, all England's games have been based on second-half power surges and the gallant Scots, behind only 16-9 at half-time, duly leaked 24 unanswered points.
The visitors, up until Ben Cohen's 50th-minute try after a hashed clearance attempt by Bryan Redpath, had played some skilful rugby even with two-thirds of their back row in the sin-bin following dangerous collisions with airborne England players. Ultimately, though, they suffered from possessing no one with the dazzling acceleration which earned Jason Robinson his two second-half tries. Robinson, having been switched from right wing to outside centre, proved again that supreme talent is a threat wherever it is deployed.
The coach Andy Robinson was equally complimentary about his forwards yet, interestingly, not every neutral envisages an automatic English win this Sunday. "In Lansdowne Road I think it's going to be more difficult for England to get the result they want," said Scotland's captain Redpath.
ENGLAND: J Lewsey; J Robinson, W Greenwood, M Tindall (D Luger 56), B Cohen; J Wilkinson (P Grayson 66), M Dawson; G Rowntree (T Woodman, 66), S Thompson, J Leonard, M Johnson, B Kay (D Grewcock 62), R Hill, N Back, L Dallaglio (J Worsley 74).
SCOTLAND: G Metcalfe; C Paterson, J McLaren (K Utterson 56), A Craig, K Logan; G Townsend, B Redpath; T Smith, G Bulloch, B Douglas (J Kerr 72), S Murray (S Grimes 51), N Hines, J White, A Mower (G Beattie 67), S Taylor.
Referee: A Lewis (Ireland).
Guardian Service
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