Welcome back to The Ruck, the journalist's rugby podcast from The Times and the Sunday Times where we are in Murrayfield. It is empty. It is dark. The game ended a few hours ago, but we are going to reflect on a bit of a bonkers Calcutter Cup. I'm Alfie Reynolds. Great to have you back with us alongside Will Kelleher and Mark Palmer, Mark, coming to the victors first tier. You all saw that coming, didn't you? That's what we've been saying all week. No, to be fair, I think most people did think that there was a possibility that Scotland, despite where they were coming from, could win this game because they have shown that they have absolutely no issue with, and no problem about getting themselves up to play england beating england

you know tactically out smarting them which they did and they did all those things today

the question inevitably now rises what will they do next week in cardiff so that because stringing

these things together has been the challenge not not beating england i feel like there's a that

what i'm trying to piece together in my mind is to what extent was

England being awful and to what extent was it Scotland doing, what, as you say, we know they can do,

which was being ruthlessly efficient, incredibly impressive in attack. They dominated England

in pretty much every area other than the set piece, which by the way, tells its own story

from an England point of view when they had a really good set piece and were still so so second best like in your mind how do you

kind of see that and piece it together somewhere in the middle i thought i was surprised at how poor

england were i thought they really kind of lacked any momentum any kind of creativity

much apart from set piece as you said there alphi but they but in a way that's also probably testament to the job that Scotland did in disrupting what they were trying to do. I thought they took them on in that aerial game and it began to look quite one dimensional, didn't it? They weren't really getting any purchase from that Scotland back three, which was an area where they probably had been targeting, thinking that there were some joy to be had from those guys.

But, you know, it was a real kind of throwback to the real best of this Gregor Townsend team. When they've played at the best, there's that real attacking a line, some great tries. Finn Russell, you know, potentially his best game for Scotland. but then on the other side of it much better backfield organisation

much better at the breakdown and that kind of defensive resolve. So I think on both sides of the ball it was actually a really kind of well structured win, not just the kind of, you know, hear him, scare him, we'll score loads of great tries and win at 4'3, kind of Kevin Keegan job. It's like Groundhog Day all the way around, isn't it?

Yep.

Because... Exactly that. We'll get on to England thing in a bit. But on the Scotland side, and it's also the same people, doing all the same stuff that they always do. And us are saying exactly the same things. But, like, Finn Russell was amazing. Hugh Jones scores his ninth try against England hilariously. like the breakdown was a mess again and in Scotland's favour.

Their attack was way more. Hugh Jones scores his ninth try against England hilariously. Like the breakdown was a mess again in Scotland's favour.

Which suited them, exactly.

Their attack was way more cohesive and clicked way better than England attack.

It's all the same things happening again.

It is.

And that's what makes it such a sort of, you feel so conflicted because it was a fantastic performance and result.

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