Scotland tears after England World Cup defeat carry double meaning as cruel cut beckons

So, it’s perhaps no surprise that the tears that flowed as Scotland’s Rugby World Cup campaign ended had a double meaning.

This 38-strong squad have spent the last few months living at close quarters with this tournament their sole goal. However, it is expected that only 15 will be centrally contracted ahead of the new season — a cruel cut this team do not deserve.

Scotland had been urged to summon the spirit of Braveheart in a quarter-final match where the odds always appeared stacked against them. But this Battle of Bristol was ultimately no Bannockburn, as they went down 40-8.

In four games England have scored 248 points and conceded just 25 — a stark statistic that no other team in the competition has come close to matching. No team, Scotland may take small consolation from, have pushed them closer.

“We’re at a pivotal point,” said captain Rachel Malcolm. “We’ve had a core group for ten years and it feels like we are on the crest of something pretty special. We’ve shown what we can achieve with support.

“I don’t want the support to decrease but to continue. We need to keep driving on and challenging and use this as a springboard.

“We’re all in unique situations. There’s a risk of losing players and we don’t want that — we need to keep our players in the game. Those losses will have an impact but we need a core to build and grow, and that’s what I’ll be pushing for.”

No player, male or female, has captained Scotland more times than Malcolm. At 34 she remains one of the best flankers in world rugby, but her biggest contribution is her voice — a passionate advocate for more support from the Scottish Rugby Union.

“People can look at my date of birth and say it’s time to hang up my boots, but pushing this team forward remains my goal and I’ll continue to fight to take this team to the next level,” she added.

“I don’t know if that’s up to me — it’s not in my control — but this team is my everything.

“We always knew England was a tough ask. We’ve taken huge steps forward across the last four games. We’ve shown what we can achieve with the right support. This is just the beginning.”

Disconnect with Scottish Rugby

Bryan Easson will now step down as Scotland coach, having guided his team from 11th to fifth in the rankings and back to the World Cup knockout stages. After spending a quarter of a century working in different roles in Scottish rugby, he insists he won’t be retiring — but it’s clear there remains a significant disconnect between him and SRU officials.

“Three years ago we were a 100 per cent amateur team; now we’re fifth in the world,” he said. “That doesn’t happen by accident — you need to invest and look after players. You can’t just stop that, you need to keep building on it.

“We shouldn’t look at this as the end of something but the start. This World Cup has moved the women’s game forward so much, but we have to keep moving at the same speed. I think there is a recipe for success with this team.

“One goal was to reach the knockout stages, and we’ve shown the growth in this group with our performances against Wales and England. This is a special group of people and we’re hugely disappointed to lose here. We wanted to cause an upset and we had belief we could.”

Easson wanted a fast start and Scotland were first on the board with a Helen Nelson penalty, only for England to respond with six unanswered tries. Rhona Lloyd’s 80th-minute score was the scantest of consolations, but still a special one.

Australia gave England an early scare in their pool match last week until quality told, and Scotland adopted a similar blueprint.

Without a win against their Auld Enemy in 26 years, their path to victory was narrow and relied on keeping discipline, eradicating errors, and making a fast start. They did the latter but arguably not the former.

If England’s first two matches against the USA and Samoa showcased all their running rugby skills, the last two weeks have been all about the grind. Of the last 13 tries they have scored, ten have come from the forwards.

The Red Roses will now face France for a place in the final next weekend, with defending champions New Zealand and world number two side Canada on the other side of the draw.

Les Bleus looked far from their best in an edgy quarter-final encounter with Ireland, but their narrow one-point defeat to England in the Six Nations earlier this year is the closest they have been pushed in a record-breaking run of 31 matches.

England fume at Scotland tactics

England are a team in the image of their Kiwi coach John Mitchell: teak-tough, with the ability to soak up pressure and punch back harder. However, he was left fuming with the tactics of Scotland’s pack, labelling them cynical for their approach to the dark arts of rugby in the forwards.

“We dominated territory, built pressure and when we found a weakness, we went for the jugular,” he said.

“What I don’t understand is when teams are so cynical and we don’t get awarded penalty tries. We’ll go through the right channels and get some clarity on that.

“There were repeated infringements at scrum time and the game deserves better than that. Look how dominant we were, in maul and scrum — we were just superior and we should be rewarded for that.”

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