England 16-15 Scotland: Pride is all that’s left to play for on Gregor Townsend’s road to nowhere

Another year goes down the drain.

After blowing the chance of victory at Twickenham, Scotland’s Six Nations championship is effectively over before we’ve even made it out of February. Again.

Over these past few years, the final round of the Six Nations has often tied in with the Cheltenham Festival and run parallel to the greatest show on turf.

But Scotland haven’t ever got near the home straight while still being in contention. Not even close. As always with Gregor Townsend in the saddle, they have jumped poorly and fallen over too many fences.

Their race is run. Like one of those loose horses wandering aimlessly round the track, Scotland are on a road to nowhere.

But the jockey hasn’t been unseated. In Townsend’s case, he’s still clinging on for dear life in the hope of salvaging some personal pride.

That’s all Scotland have left now. With two games to come, against Wales and France, this year’s Championship is just about trying to save face.

It looks certain to be yet another year of mid-table mediocrity. Given how dominant they were in the first half at Twickenham on Saturday, it really shouldn’t have been this way.

Scotland played all the rugby, outscoring England by three tries to one. They played with a sense of ambition against a home team who were, frankly, dreadful in attack.

Duhan van der Merwe destroyed England once again out wide, tormenting Marcus Smith and making a mockery of the England full-back’s attempts to tackle him.

Van der Merwe would later be named man of the match. That was the wrong call, as the award should really have been given to Jamie Ritchie.

Ritchie played like a man possessed. He was absolutely colossal in Scotland’s back row and did not deserve to be on the losing side.

Scotland had scored twice inside the opening 20 minutes through Ben White and Huw Jones. The only criticism was that they failed to take more than a three-point lead down the tunnel at half-time.

A 10-7 scoreline at the break was not reflective of the overall balance of play. England were abysmal, kicking the leather off the ball in a performance that made the eyes bleed.

Yet, crucially, Scotland never fully killed them off. Finn Russell missed six points from the tee with three missed conversions.

The collective failure, however, was bigger than Russell’s ropey right boot. In the second half, Scotland lost their way and lost a lot of the big collisions against a belligerent English defence.

Townsend’s side struggled to get any go-forward. They hadn’t scored a point in the second half prior to Van der Merwe’s try right at the death, only for Russell to pull the conversion wide.

The chance of claiming a historic fifth successive win over the Auld Enemy went up in smoke. And this one stung. It really stung.

Granted, the French referee didn’t do Scotland any favours. The one try that England scored, coming in the first half through Tommy Freeman, looked a little dubious to say the least. There was nothing conclusive on the TV replays to suggest the ball had been legally grounded. It looked held up. A try was awarded nonetheless.

There were also a couple of contentious penalty calls from Pierre Brousset.

Afterwards, Townsend did his best to maintain a diplomatic tone, but he wasn’t happy.

Like Russell’s missed conversions, though, there was more to this than just a few dodgy calls from the official. Scotland need only look at themselves. This defeat was self-inflicted.

It’s not like England came roaring back at them in the second half and started playing some rugby. Plainly, they didn’t. For the second time in succession, Steve Borthwick’s side won a game they really ought to have lost. If it was a narrow escape against France, this almost felt like an act of grand larceny.

In fairness to Borthwick, winning tight, scrappy games is not a bad habit. The Six Nations doesn’t really offer any points or prizes for artistic merit.

Scotland will now head into another fallow week picking the bones out of this one and trying to assess how the momentum shifted so much from first half to second.

Did they get enough from the bench? Absolutely not. With the exception of Stafford McDowall and Gregor Brown, the contributions from there weren’t anywhere near punchy enough.

Even some guys in the starting XV didn’t really do enough. Jonny Gray and Grant Gilchrist just sort of plodded through the game, offering no real punch or carrying threat.

Pierre Schoeman and Zander Fagerson, the Scotland props, were just slightly off it. The Scots never got monstered up front the way some had predicted, but nor did they really hurt England either.

Russell had one of his poorest ever games in the Calcutta Cup. The Scotland fly-half is having a very average Championship overall.

Will he keep his place in the team for the game against Wales in a fortnight? Yeah, of course he will. Whether he should or not is a different question.

Listen, Russell has been outstanding for Scotland over many years. With magic in his hands, he’s led them to plenty of great days against England.

His performance on Saturday was reflective of a player who just isn’t having a very good championship. Harsh? Maybe. But also true.

Having been battered from pillar to post in the first two rounds of the Championship, to the extent that Warren Gatland departed, Wales looked much improved against Ireland on Saturday. Although they still lost the game, there was enough in their performance to suggest that a Scots win won’t be a formality at Murrayfield.

If the unthinkable were to happen and Scotland were to lose, they would be staring down the barrel of a one-win Championship ahead of the final game in Paris.

If Townsend is to see out the final year of his contract, the Wales game is, in some respects, the biggest match of his Scotland tenure.

Lose and he’ll almost certainly be gone. Win and he might just about save face. Even the prospect of another two-win Championship feels hollow and worthless right now.

Coming into this year’s Six Nations, Scotland had eyes on bigger prizes. Rightly or wrongly, they were fancied as challengers.

It feels like they are now reaching an end-point under Townsend. The margins between success and failure are often fine.

The margins between a team who consistently fall into mid-table mediocrity and one who can genuinely challenge? They’re a lot bigger, and Scotland look no closer to bridging that gap.