Inside Dominik Szoboszlai’s main-character energy season, and the una… — and more

From a variety of roles, Szoboszlai has reached double figures for the season while looking a worthy inheritor of Steven Gerrard’s No 8 shirt and a future Liverpool captain

There are different reasoning levels when it comes to defining Scotland’s thumping win over England in Edinburgh last Saturday. Some are obvious and others are given less scrutiny than they ought to receive.

The first and last words belong to Scotland. Their ruthless conversion of every advantage they created, or were ceded, was orchestrated by Finn Russell, who is one of the best in the game at exploiting defensive weaknesses. He played the game required, in the areas needed. The Scottish team answered for Gregor Townsend and his relevance to the set-up.

But one question remains: how does Townsend ensure the consistency that is the necessary foundation for a tournament or World Cup challenge and to thereby emerge from the middle rank of unions?

England bench selection showed limits

Simplistic but true, it is a fact that if you play for 30 minutes out of 80 with 14 men, you are going to lose most games against any capable opponent. End of, as they now say.

Henry Arundell could legitimately argue about his first yellow card but not the second (and a 20-minute red card) for his clumsy challenge with an airborne Kyle Steyn. Even when England were able to get 15 men back on the field, their bench selection came into play and showed its limits.

One of the reasons for England’s 12-match run of successive wins was that Steve Borthwick’s “Pom Squad” picks had proved more effective than those of his counterparts. With seamless transition between first-choice and second-choice players, they have been able to cover the eventualities that arose and have secured victories.

The Scotland game threw up a variable that was less easily managed, one which should cause pause for thought about the split on the bench between forwards and backs and which players are selected to cover the backs positions.

When Borthwick picked Fin Smith, he got cover at centre and fly-half, allowing Tommy Freeman to go to the wing when Arundell got sent off and was eventually replaced. Technically, this should have worked but it disrupted the back line more than if he had opted for Marcus Smith, or another player, who can cover both fly-half and full-back.

Borthwick needs to consider whether that option was more effective than Marcus Smith coming on at full-back with Freddie Steward moving to the wing, a place where he has been picked as first-choice on occasion. This conundrum might be one that occurs less often than not, but it is not unforeseeable and it exposes a problem with the now-conventional bench split of six forwards and two backs.

The replacement of Maro Itoje is also puzzling. Jamie George is an experienced leader, but I believe that in the absence of injury it is preferable to keep your captain on for the full game. As it turned out, the ending of Arundell’s 20-minute red card also appeared to have a knock-on effect when England made their forward substitutions. It was not until the 57th minute that England chose to change four forwards, by which time Scotland had scored four tries and gained a bonus point.

World’s best don’t have voodoo opponents

In my pre-tournament column, I said that this game would probably be the most testing of England’s fixtures and although they broke Scotland’s winning streak in the Calcutta Cup last year, that game was won by just one point and was played at home. It cannot be denied that presently Scotland have a psychological edge in this fixture.

When it comes to the world’s best, South Africa, you do not see this sort of voodoo opponent. England have to find a way to break this pattern as it is a conspicuous blot on their landscape.

Scotland decisively won the aerial battle, and this is an area that I believe needs more scrutiny than this crude observation. Given the ubiquity of kicking, the outcome of this duel has a significant impact in terms of momentum, if not always reflected obviously in points.

As it is often a messy contest, it can appear to be a matter of luck, but there is insufficient in-game analysis. Stats are used for everything else in the game, even things that are irrelevant. They remain frustratingly absent in recording how much momentum is gained from what are actually turnovers when kicks are not recovered in attack or are spilled when defending.

Although England threatened to work their way back into the game, they were undone by a series of muddled line-outs, handling errors and poor decisions at crucial times.

For England, Saturday’s home game against Ireland now assumes a disproportionate importance. Win and they might still have a chance of challenging for the title come the last round.

Lose and they are destined for mid-table mediocrity, which is not what was expected or needed on the back of their run of wins and conspicuous progress.