When Sione Tuipulotu sat down and spoke to the media on Saturday night, he wore the broadest of smiles. There was a mixture of euphoria, pride, and maybe even relief.
‘I feared what the Italy game last week would do to us as a group a little bit,’ said the Scotland captain. ‘I can’t remember hurting like that after a game.
‘We took a lot of criticism. I said I wanted to see a Scotland team who were desperate to win. We were either going to boss England, or they were going to boss us. Particularly in the forward pack, we bossed them.’
He was right, too. Physically dominant and sharper in their execution with ball in hand, Tuipulotu became the latest Scotland captain to leave this fixture with England’s lunch money rattling around in his pocket.
That was the beauty of this performance from Scotland. It wasn’t just an arm wrestle up front, but nor was it the helter-skelter stuff we have seen from them so often in the past.
There was a measure of control. There was balance and composure to it all. They were excellent on both sides of the ball and produced as close to an 80-minute performance as we have seen from them in many a long year.
Ben White celebrates after scoring Scotland’s third try to extend his side’s advantage
Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend congratulates Gregor Brown on an impressive display
Scotland captain Sione Tuipulotu holds aloft the Calcutta Cup after a rousing Murrayfield win
Especially in the opening 20 minutes or so, they played with so much tempo, ambition and accuracy. Gregor Townsend branded it some of the best rugby of his time in charge. England were blown away.
With Finn Russell in the sort of form that reaffirms his credentials as the best fly-half on the planet, Scotland had gone from bust in Rome to the most spectacular boom at Murrayfield.
And therein lies the wider problem for this team. They continue to blow hot and cold in the most infuriating fashion. In the space of seven days, they can lurch from woeful to wonderful, unwatchable to unplayable.
Listen, no one is trying to rain on anyone’s parade here. Scotland were absolutely sensational on Saturday and thoroughly deserved their victory.
Beyond the mesmeric brilliance of Russell, there were several other players who delivered top-class performances.
Kyle Steyn and Huw Jones would be chief among them. Steyn might just be the most under-rated player in world rugby right now, while Jones brought echoes of 2018 by scoring two tries.
Huw Jones races the length of the Murrayfield pitch to score Scotland’s fourth try of the game
Scott Cummings was a colossus up front and got the better of Maro Itoje, the England captain whose dismal record of winning only once at Murrayfield continued.
There were no failures in the Scotland team. They were superb. But we’ve said all of this so many times before against England.
During Townsend’s tenure as head coach, this was the seventh time in nine years they have wound up with the Calcutta Cup. It is unprecedented dominance.
If Scotland could play England every week, they would be Grand Slam contenders every single year in the Six Nations.
The problem is that there are four other teams to play, and Scotland have already lost to one of them in disastrous fashion.
Townsend spoke on Saturday about the notion that Scotland raise their game against England more than any other opponent.
Henry Arundell’s dangerous challenge on Kyle Steyn had a major bearing on the outcome
Broadly speaking, it’s a theory he rejects. But he also couldn’t understand why people were using it as a stick with which to beat his team.
‘I did find it funny that people were viewing it as a negative,’ he said. ‘I played 10 times against England and only won once. To consistently play our best rugby against England is a massive positive.’
Of course it is a positive. But it’s only a positive if the incredible highs they can reach against England is married to a general baseline of consistency in the other fixtures.
And that’s something that continues to elude Scotland. The gap between Scotland at their best, compared to at their worst, is far greater than any other team in world rugby.
Look at the world rankings. They sit 10th in the current rankings, but they didn’t play like that on Saturday. This was a performance that would have troubled even the top two or three teams in the world.
The players will have enjoyed themselves on Saturday night and will now spend the next few days at a training camp in Spain before arriving in Cardiff for next weekend’s clash with Wales.
Jamie Ritchie celebrated his recall to the side with a try after a well worked Scotland move
In the grand scheme of things, this result really doesn’t change a whole lot. We know Scotland can beat England.
But the extent of their ambitions should not be limited to winning only one game, and nor should success be viewed purely through the prism of beating England every year.
Dream bigger, aim higher, believe that this group of players are capable of better. This performance showed the level they can reach.
This is not about one game. It has never been about one game. It is about the next game, and the game after that. Consistency, mounting a proper challenge, that’s what fans really want to see.
There is something parochial about Scotland’s mindset if they believe that this latest victory over England suddenly makes everything in the garden rosy once again.
Plainly, it doesn’t. For all the elation and bewitching brilliance of Murrayfield on Saturday, this is a team who continue to go round in circles under Townsend.
Tuipulotu was thrilled to end a week of recriminations by reclaiming the Calcutta Cup trophy
No one is trying to be a killjoy here. Scotland earned a lot of plaudits on Saturday — and rightly so. They were outstanding. But let’s not get all happy-clappy about it.
Tuipulotu had spoken about emotion and wanting to see a sense of desperation in Scotland’s efforts to win the game. He got it in abundance.
To reach that emotional high is fairly easy against England. It’s a rivalry and Scotland were stung by the criticism post-Rome.
If they weren’t pumped up and didn’t produce a reaction, something would have been far wrong. But how do they replicate that in Cardiff?
They won’t be playing England. There is no savage criticism to lean into, as there was last week. Can they still find the same beast within themselves and unleash it on Wales?
As Townsend pointed out, there is still a championship to win. Take care of business in Cardiff and suddenly the visit of France to Murrayfield in round four takes on a whole new level of significance.
