Scotland End England’s Grand Slam Hopes
Scotland ended England’s hopes of a Grand Slam with a gutsy 18-12 win at a wet and windy Murryfield on Saturday.
The sides went in level at the break after a penalty apiece from Charlie Hodgson and Chris Paterson.
Hodgson then edged England ahead but two Paterson penalties and a Dan Parks drop goal gave Scotland a 12-6 lead.
In the final 20 minutes, Hodgson landed two penalties for England but Paterson slotted two for Scotland to clinch a deserved victory for the hosts.
Scotland’s Chris Paterson said: “Beating a team like England is something special, beating the world champions was a great effort from us.”
“But we didn’t show much in attack. That suggests to me that there’s a lot more to come from this Scottish team.”
“This is not an overnight thing,” he added. “To beat the Barbarians was great, we took that through the summer and we had a positive autumn.”
“Now we have beaten France and England but we feel there is more to come. We can attack better and we now have two away games when we hope to remedy that and win them both.”
England’s fly-half Charlie Hodgson agreed with Paterson that Scotland’s self belief had played a key role.
“They were a lot more confident than they were last year, both in attack and defence,” he said.
“Last year we were able to create a few gaps against Scotland and went through a few players.”
“But this time, their work rate was tremendous and they were always there to help one another. They just cut out a lot of our options.”
However, Hodgson felt his team should have been able to overcome such stubborn resistance.
“We’re hurting, because you come up against defences like that all the time,” said the Sale player.
“It’s just about being more clinical and taking your chances. Now it’s a big test of our squad’s character to come back from that and win in France.”
