CALCUTTA CUP MATCH England v Scotland:EVERYONE SOUTH of Hadrian's Wall may be anticipating a heavy Scottish defeat at Twickenham tomorrow, but Calcutta Cups are rarely dished out without some kind of bristling, chest-to-chest altercation, particularly when there is a possible English Grand Slam to disrupt.
It is hard, even so, to envisage the hosts not giving their opponents more in the way of hammer, even if the Scots arrive with an array of tactical tricks. Half this England team were not born the last time Scotland conquered Twickenham in 1983; latterly the fixture has become all too predictable, as close as the Six Nations ever comes to a home banker. If his resurgent side revert to bad old habits, Martin Johnson will not be alone in wanting to know why.
The confirmation of a virtually unchanged starting XV, with Alex Corbisiero deputising once more for the injured Andrew Sheridan, underlines Johnson’s desire not to deviate from the highly-encouraging road his squad are progressing down.
No matter that Andy Robinson used to be England’s head coach and, as such, is better placed than anyone to know what is coming but the flowering confidence of the players in white will still be a nasty shock. With referee Romain Poite renowned for favouring the stronger scrummaging side the most obvious threat to England would appear to be complacency, particularly at the rucks where Robinson will have noticed France caused them problems.
“We know what Scotland are like; they’ll come after us in that area,” Johnson said. “If we’re not strong over the breakdown, all that stuff you want to see out wide won’t be happening. You’ll have slow ball and a big defensive line in your face. Rugby’s not the sort of game where you can sit back and say: ‘We’re better than you’. If you sit back you get smashed. Losing is always a possibility. They’ll have things lined up for us we haven’t seen all tournament. We have to be smart.”
It is the 140th anniversary this month of the first England-Scotland encounter at Raeburn Place, Edinburgh. Even England’s resident Kiwi hooker Dylan Hartley has grown used to a red rose acting as a veritable red rag to every bull-necked opponent in world rugby, although the finer points of Caledonian legend still elude him. “I roughly know what happened . . . I’ve seen Braveheart,” he said.
As for Robinson’s midweek complaint that Hartley deliberately stands up in the scrums to milk penalties, the hooker is determined to show England are squeaky clean in that department. “I don’t think we’ve given away any free-kicks for (standing up) in this tournament. Romain’s a good referee and he’ll reward the dominant team.”
With Tom Croft back on the bench, and his fellow replacements Matt Banahan and Jonny Wilkinson more than capable of preying on a tiring defence, it will also require something special from the visiting loose forwards if Chris Ashton, England’s frequent flyer, is to be deprived of more air miles. There have been glimpses of Scottish fluency against France and Ireland but England’s defence has been decidedly mean, with two tries conceded in this championship.
Given Ruaridh Jackson does not have the longest of tactical boots, their best option is probably to try to exploit Twickenham’s wide open spaces by keeping the ball in hand, disrupting the English lineout at every opportunity.
Robinson will also know, even in defeat, there are psychological points to be scored, with the two countries in the same pool at this autumn’s World Cup in New Zealand. Johnson’s side, however, have only one priority, namely booking a title decider in Dublin on Saturday week. A high-flying England win by 20 points would be the perfect springboard.
Guardian Service
Venue: Twickenham Kick-off: 3pm On TV: RTÉ2, BBC2
