You're mad if you think that was a "bad" England performance. It was the brightest performance I have seen in a long time - it was just unfortunate it was coupled with a lot of individual mistakes. I thought Dombrandt didn't have great game, a couple of knock ons after good passes from Smith and an atrocious attempt at a tackle for Van Der Merwe's first try. Owen Farrell was out of position for both of Scotland's first two tries and left Marchant wide open to be attacked on his inside. Ben White's try was laughable and you could see what Sinfield thought when the screen showed him blowing his cheeks out. We're talking about basic defending from the bottom of a ruck.
I thought our set-piece was poor barring a couple of scrums, but I am sure Borthwick will have this in hand.
Lewis Ludlam had his best game in an England shirt for me - Ollie Chessum was decent if not for a couple of minor errors at the line outs - Ellis Genge was Ellis Genge, 9/10 as always - Sinckler was back to his best - Curry's first 6 Nations performance was promising - Marcus Smith was alert and put some decent plays together. If Finn Russell does what Marcus did for our first try, then its a headline try.
For me, a large portion of our game which needs the most improvement is the amount of yards we carry. We make small 1-2 metre carries and go through the phases, but the more phases generally leads to more mishandles, more counter rucks and misplaced passes. I'd really like to see us break through lines at times and carry 8-12 metres at a time to really pull defences back into line and push for offsides when then opposition isn't set. Italy did this really well yesterday against the French.
