Hogg hurting after England loss
By Paul Eddison
8/2/20
Scotland are hurting after a second successive defeat to open the Guinness Six Nations according to skipper Stuart Hogg.
A week after a seven-point defeat away to Ireland in Dublin, Scotland again had their chances in difficult conditions at BT Murrayfield before falling 13-6 to England.
Trailing 3-0 at half-time, Scotland levelled the scores after the break and then had long periods in the England 22, but could not convert their chances.
Instead, Ellis Genge’s try proved the difference, coming after Hogg had been forced to take the ball over his own line and concede a five-metre scrum.
Post-game, the Exeter Chiefs star could not hide his disappointment at coming out on the wrong side of the result, as the Auld Enemy regained the Calcutta Cup.
He said: “We had some good opportunities in that second half, especially early doors and got ourselves into some good areas and unfortunately came up short.
“The boys are bitterly disappointed with the final outcome but there are some good things and some things to work on.
“It was a huge chance for us to exit and get down the right end and unfortunately the ball didn’t sit up and it was tough to take. I put the boys under a wee bit of pressure and unfortunately we didn’t manage to get out of there. I’ll take that on the chin and be in a position to say I made a mistake. These things unfortunately cost us.
“We’re hurting now but on Monday when we’re back in together, we’ll look forward to our next job. We have to start learning from these costly errors and make sure we’re in a good place when we play against Italy in a couple of weeks’ time.”
Scotland now have a fortnight’s break before taking on Italy in Round 3 in Rome, as they look to break their duck in the Championship.
And while the results have not gone their way, head coach Gregor Townsend was pleased with the effort put in by his side.
He added: “As a group, I spoke to the players about reflecting on the past two games. They are disappointed because they worked very hard to get into a position of 3-3. This wasn’t going to be a game with many points scored in it. They worked hard to get a chance of winning or getting ahead.
“But we have played two very good teams in the last couple of weeks. It took us a while to adapt to the conditions but I was proud of how the players did adapt to it and really took the game to England in the second half.”
