Scotland have ended 10 years of misery against the Auld Enemy with a 25-13 victory over England at Murrayfield on Saturday.
It brings to an end an eight-game losing streak for Scotland against England and represents Scotland’s greatest triumph of the modern era.
Meanwhile, England’s hopes of claiming a record third successive title have been cast into doubt while Ireland have now emerged as favourites following their convincing win over Wales.
Greig Laidlaw gave Scotland an early lead, making it nine from nine penalties in this year’s Six Nations.
Owen Farrell levelled matters at 3-3 after 14 minutes but then out of nowhere Scotland scored the game’s first try. After driving a maul in to the 22, Finn Russell placed a well-weighted grubber kick through which bounced fortunately for Scotland, completely bamboozling Anthony Watson as Huw Jones pounced on the ball to run through and dot down for the game’s first try. Laidlaw’s conversion made it 10-3.
England resorted to mauling as their primary weapon of attack and it was from here they won a penalty as Scotland lock Grant Gilchrist was penalised for pulling the maul down. Farrell made no mistake from the tee, cutting the deficit to four with a quarter of the match gone.
Russell was pulling the strings on attack for Scotland and made two superb passes in the build-up to an excellent team try, the final pass a floater over the top for Sean Maitland to dive over in the corner.
Jones grabbed his brace, running a sublime line to scythe through the tackle of Nathan Hughes and still showed great strength to brush off the dual attentions of Watson and Mike Brown as he powered over the try-line with a truly world-class finish.
England immediately took the game to Scotland after the break, enjoying their best spell of possession of the game and the resistance was broken just four minutes in when Farrell ran a lovely line as Danny Care switched back to the blindside, catching the Scottish defence slightly off-guard.
A long period of no scoring ensued before Sam Underhill saw yellow in the 65th minute for a no-arms tackle. Russell slotted the subsequent penalty to extend the lead to 25-13.
However, Scotland showed tremendous character on defence to deny England any further scores and secure an historic victory.
The scorers:
For Scotland:
Tries: Jones 2, Maitland
Cons: Laidlaw 2
Pens: Laidlaw, Russell
For England:
Try: Farrell
Con: Farrell
Pens: Farrell 2
Scotland: 15 Stuart Hogg, 14 Tommy Seymour, 13 Huw Jones, 12 Pete Horne, 11 Sean Maitland, 10 Finn Russell, 9 Greig Laidlaw, 8 Ryan Wilson, 7 Hamish Watson, 6 John Barclay (c), 5 Jonny Gray, 4 Grant Gilchrist, 3 Simon Berghan, 2 Stuart McInally, 1 Gordon Reid
Replacements: 16 Scott Lawson, 17 Jamie Bhatti, 18 Willem Nel, 19 Tim Swinson, 20 David Denton, 21 Ali Price, 22 Nick Grigg, 23 Blair Kinghorn
England: 15 Mike Brown, 14 Anthony Watson, 13 Jonathan Joseph, 12 Owen Farrell, 11 Jonny May, 10 George Ford, 9 Danny Care, 8 Nathan Hughes, 7 Chris Robshaw, 6 Courtney Lawes, 5 Maro Itoje, 4 Joe Launchbury, 3 Dan Cole, 2 Dylan Hartley (c), 1 Mako Vunipola
Replacements: 16 Jamie George, 17 Joe Marler, 18 Harry Williams, 19 George Kruis, 20 Sam Underhill, 21 Richard Wigglesworth, 22 Ben Te’o, 23 Jack Nowell
Referee: Nigel Owens (Wales)
Assistant Referees: Jérôme Garcès (France), Andrew Brace (Ireland)
TMO: Simon McDowell (Ireland)
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