England captain Owen Farrell says his team’s desire to improve after the disappointment of losing against France last week helped them regain the Calcutta Cup, after beating Scotland 13-6 at BT Murrayfield.
In testing conditions, both England and Scotland struggled rhythm in the first half with Farrell’s penalty the only points scored in tight opening period.
Adam Hastings’ penalty drew Scotland level after the break but Ellis Genge’s 69th-minute try ensured the Calcutta Cup returned to England after two years.
“We’re happy with the performance more than anything,” Farrell said.
“To come up here on a day like this with a brilliant atmosphere, it made for a tough game of rugby.
“We stuck at it for 80 minutes today – it didn’t all go our way, we made it difficult for ourselves at times, but I thought our attitude was spot on.
“We want to be better. We were very disappointed last week and today was going to be tough, especially with the weather like this.
“[On the weather] It’s pretty unpredictable which made the ball go out on the full a fair few times.
“The most pleasing thing for us was our attitude, it never took away from us and we seemed to grow as the game went on.”
Following last week’s narrow defeat away to Ireland, captain Stuart Hogg knew his team needed to respond in their first home match.
Despite spending almost twice as long in their opponent’s 22 as England, Hogg and his side were unable to convert their chances into points as the weather played havoc at BT Murrayfield.
“We’re gutted. We worked incredibly hard during the week to make sure we got where we wanted to be but unfortunately we came up short,” Hogg said.
“All credit to England, they managed to control the ball and play in the right areas but we’re gutted with that.
“We had opportunities but we didn’t make the most of it. We’ve just got to move on now but the same as last week, I’m proud of the boys’ effort.
“We have done some good things in the last couple of games but at the end of the day we’re here to win Test matches and we haven’t managed to do that.
“We will get back to the drawing board on Monday morning and make sure we’re ready for two weeks’ time.”
