Scotland vs England match report: Billy Vunipola stands tall as Eddie Jones’ boys show class

Scotland 9 England 15

(2016 Getty Images)

Calcutta Cup rugby is just about the oldest union story of them all and, on the face of it, this latest chapter unfolded in time-honoured fashion: an English victory, narrow in the numbers but more decisive in its nature, based around an iron defence, a punishing driving maul, set-piece discipline, a low error count and a Herculean performance from a world-class forward – Billy Vunipola, the No 8, in this instance. But here, at the start of the Eddie Jones era, there was something new about it too. Something fresh. Something exciting.

Down the years, low-scoring games between the most venerable of sporting enemies have been as dull as ditchwater – the rugby version of watching glue set on a grey background.

This was different. Frantic for much of the 80 minutes and never less than compelling, it was not until the final quarter that England subjected the Scots to some serious domination – and even then, they were only one interception pass from mucking it up.

In fact, there was an interception pass, thrown by the substitute scrum-half Ben Youngs and caught by the home outside-half Finn Russell. Had it gone to the full-back Stuart Hogg, as it could easily have done, the Scots might have gone on to win. As it turned out, Russell decided in the blink of an eye that he was no one’s idea of a Caledonian Usain Bolt, and kicked the ball downfield – a shot to nothing that did precisely what it said on the tin, much to the visitors’ relief.

England have never particularly enjoyed their ventures across the old Roman wall: Clive Woodward regularly gave voice to his fear and loathing of these Murrayfield occasions before he was made a knight of the realm, and the World Cup-winning coach is even more vocal on the subject now, despite having no personal skin in the game.

Yet more often than not, they have travelled as much in expectation as in hope. The general red-rose consensus throughout the professional era has been that if they played half-decently, they would win. Not by much, but by enough.

There was a contrasting feel about yesterday, partly because England, familiar as their starting line-up may have been, were necessarily in a state of flux, and partly because Scotland had good reason to fancy themselves. The home side knew they were well armed in areas of red-rose weakness – for instance, they had three specialist openside flankers in their match-day squad, while the visitors could claim nothing more than a big fat zero – and they were confident that in the unstructured parts of the contest, the electrifying Hogg and the dangerous Russell held the ace cards in terms of wit and invention.

It was vital, therefore, that England should establish some authority pretty damned quickly. They started well enough, the new captain Dylan Hartley hitting the mark with his early line-out propulsions, Vunipola using his mighty advantage in the pounds and ounces department to puncture the Scots’ defensive line and George Ford, the polar opposite to the big No 8 in every imaginable sense, proving almost as effective in hanging wickedly testing high balls on Hogg and his colleagues in the blue-shirted back three.

George Kruis scores England's opening try (2016 Getty Images)

And the dividends were not long in coming. Thirteen minutes in, following a characteristically energetic chip and chase from the England wing Jack Nowell that forced Hogg to seek sanctuary behind his own goal-line at the cost of a five-metre scrum, Vunipola found enough go-forward off a neutral set-piece to set up a close-range try for his fellow Saracens forward George Kruis.

If this development said plenty about the fires burning inside Vunipola, who had started like a steam train, it said everything about the goal-kicking pecking order at the start of the Jones regime. Owen Farrell was the man who popped over the simple conversion, not Ford. Some 15 months ago, when the Bath playmaker relieved his old schoolmate and neighbour of the No 10 shirt, pressing Farrell into a relocation at inside-centre, the boot was on the other foot, so to speak. It seems Jones has already made one of the more important decisions facing him in the earliest stage of his tenure.

Much to Jones’s frustration, England conceded immediately from the restart – the kind of weakness that has all coaches clutching handfuls of hair from their head, even the bald ones. Hogg cut a dash in open field, Hartley was penalised on the floor and Greig Laidlaw nailed the three-pointer. From then until half-time, the Scots were the ones with the force behind them, and they would surely have capitalised with a little more composure.

Jack Nowell scores England's second try (2016 Getty Images)

Whatever points Jones made during the interval, he made them with feeling: when England re-emerged, they seemed to have grown an inch and fattened up by a stone. Taking charge at close quarters, with Vunipola rumbling once more into the opposition red zone, they whipped the ball right to the V-man’s brother Mako, who held the Scottish defence and then wrongfooted it with a sublime pass to Farrell, whose quick delivery resulted in a fine try for Nowell.

If that did not quite break the Scots in mind and spirit, it certainly quietened them. The only scoring thereafter was from the kicking tee – a penalty for Farrell, a penalty for Laidlaw – and as the clock ticked down, the scale of the English governance in all the areas that mattered was sufficient to send Nicola Sturgeon in search of a single malt.

Just as Billy Vunipola was being named man of the match – a no-brainer if ever there was one – brother Mako could be seen wrecking the Scottish scrum. It was not exclusively a family affair, but the outsized siblings will rest well in their bunk beds when they return to the team base tomorrow.

Teams

Scotland: S Hogg (Glasgow); S Maitland (London Irish), M Bennett (Glasgow), M Scott (Edinburgh), T Seymour (Glasgow; D Taylor, Saracens, 65); F Russell (Glasgow), G Laidlaw (capt, Gloucester); A Dickinson (Edinburgh; G Reid, Glasgow, 57), R Ford (Edinburgh; S McInally, Edinburgh, 64), WP Nel (Edinburgh; Z Fagerson, Glasgow, 69), R Gray (Castres), J Gray (Glasgow; T Swinson, Glasgow, 69), J Barclay (Scarlets; B Cowan, London Irish, 58), J Hardie (Edinburgh), D Denton (Bath).

England: M Brown (Harlequins); A Watson (Bath), J Joseph (Bath), O Farrell (Saracens), J Nowell (Exeter); G Ford (Bath), D Care (Harlequins; B Youngs, Leicester, 54); J Marler (Harlequins; M Vunipola, Saracens, 48), D Hartley (capt, Northampton; J George, Saracens, 76), D Cole (Leicester), J Launchbury (Wasps; C Lawes, Northampton, 46), G Kruis (Saracens), C Robshaw (Harlequins; J Clifford, Harlequins, 69), J Haskell (Wasps), B Vunipola (Saracens).

Referee: J Lacey (Ireland).