England beat Scots but could rue mistakes
By Mitch Phillips
LONDON (Reuters) - England put themselves back in the mix for the Six Nations title when they beat Scotland 25-13 on Saturday to join Ireland and Wales on six points and set up a mouth-watering finale next week but they may come to rue a host of missed try-scoring chances.
After Wales had beaten Ireland in Cardiff earlier, England knew a big win against a team they had not lost to at home for 32 years would put them in pole position on points difference but they made hard work even of securing victory, having somehow trailed 13-10 at halftime despite largely dominating.
Second-half tries by George Ford and Jack Nowell, added to Jonathan Joseph's score after five minutes, did just enough to secure the win.
Yet there was precious little for the Twickenham crowd to get excited about after they had arrived with their hopes revived by Wales's win.
England lead the table with a points difference of plus 37 and complete their campaign at home to France in the last match of next week's 'Super Saturday' finale.
By then, they will know exactly what they have to do to take the title after Wales (currently plus 12) have played Italy in Rome and Ireland (plus 33) have faced Scotland in Edinburgh.
It is a scenario that will dismay and baffle England fans following an opening 15 minutes when they constantly tore through the visiting defence but had only Joseph's nicely created fourth try of the championship to savour amid a host of blown opportunities.
They paid for that profligacy with Scotland levelling in the 22nd minute when Mark Bennett scored in their first serious attack and strong Scottish pressure earned two Greig Laidlaw penalties that gave them the improbable interval lead.
The second half began with more English pressure and a try, this time as Ford opened a hole with a nice dummy.
Mike Brown thought he had scored another but it was ruled out for James Haskell's careless forward pass before Ford struck a post with an easy penalty.
England finally crossed again when winger Nowell slipped over in the corner but Ford's missed conversion summed up their accident-prone day as they seek their first title since 2011.
"We left a few points out there, which is frustrating, but at least we were creating opportunities," Ford told the BBC.
"We just need to tidy ourselves up a bit."
(Editing by Ian Chadband)
