England have vowed to show their nasty side against Scotland on Saturday with the captain Maro Itoje calling on his team to buck the trend of recent history by clinching the Calcutta Cup for the first time in five years.
Buoyed by their one-point victory over France last time out, England have been chomping at the bit all week with Tom Curry admitting there was an “edginess” to training on Monday and Ben Earl revealing the squad were subjecting to a series of video clips showcasing their failings in recent defeats by Scotland.
Related: Scotland happy to let England worry about righting old wrongs
England last beat Scotland in 2020 and have not defeated Saturday’s opponents at Twickenham since 2017 but victory can keep Steve Borthwick’s side in the hunt for the Six Nations title.
Itoje is one of only five of England’s starting team to taste victory over Scotland and will be aware that defeat on Saturday will ensure a worst ever run against the auld enemy.
“You don’t want blind rage and you don’t want blind, beating-your-chest fury, but you need some of that,” said Itoje. “You definitely need an element of that, but you also need accuracy. Rugby is not a game of brute force alone, you need accuracy and you need to have the composure to identify space and execute. Wherever we land in the balance of the two is something that we have to feel, but we definitely need elements of both.
“Scotland have had a number on us for a few years and that’s something we’re not proud about. That’s something that we don’t like and hopefully on Saturday we can create our own history. They have a better record against us in recent times than most nations. That’s something we are massively motivated to try to overturn.
“From our point of view, it’s a brilliant opportunity on Saturday to try to change the narrative there and win the Calcutta Cup. It is always personal. Rugby is an emotional game. In my humble opinion it is a game that requires more emotion than most other sports because of the nature of what we do. We want our team to be full of emotion. But we want that accuracy. We don’t want blind emotion that clouds your judgment. But we need some of it so we can get to the place we want to get to.”
Scotland are the only Six Nations side that Borthwick is yet to beat since taking charge but while Gregor Townsend’s side seem to raise their game for this fixture, England are determined to meet fire with fire.
“We’ve spoken about it as a group, everyone says teams that play against England, they find a bit extra but actually there’s a nastiness to us,” said the assistant coach Tom Harrison. “We want to win the Calcutta Cup back here. We haven’t done so. We want to do that.
England: M Smith (Harlequins); T Freeman (Northampton), O Lawrence (Bath), H Slade (Exeter), O Sleightholme (Northampton); F Smith (Northampton), A Mitchell (Northampton); E Genge (Bristol), L Cowan-Dickie (Sale), W Stuart (Bath), M Itoje (Saracens, capt), O Chessum (Leicester), T Curry (Sale), B Earl (Saracens), T Willis (Saracens). Replacements: J George (Saracens), F Baxter (Harlequins), J Heyes (Leicester), T Hill (Bath), C Cunningham-South (Harlequins), B Curry (Sale), H Randall (Bristol), E Daly (Saracens).
Scotland: B Kinghorn (Toulouse), K Rowe (Glasgow), H Jones (Glasgow), T Jordan (Glasgow), D Van der Merwe (Edinburgh), F Russell (Bath, co-capt), B White (Toulon); P Schoeman (Edinburgh), D Cherry (Edinburgh), Z Fagerson (Glasgow), J Gray (Bordeaux), G Gilchrist (Edinburgh), J Ritchie (Edinburgh), R Darge (Glasgow, co-capt), J Dempsey (Glasgow). Replacements: E Ashman (Edinburgh), R Sutherland (Glasgow), W Hurd (Leicester), S Skinner (Edinburgh), G Brown (Glasgow), M Fagerson (Glasgow), J Dobie (Glasgow), S McDowall (Glasgow).
“You want to win every game you play in, you want to win every Six Nations Test match. There are loads of blokes playing week in, week out with these players and if you lose to someone you have to wear it for a whole year, every day when you go into the club you know they have got the better of you. Everyone has got their different reasons why they want to win and how deep that hurt goes.”
Tom Willis, who will appear against Scotland for the first time, echoed that sentiment. I think the way we compete with each other in the week sets the tone for the weekends,” said the No 8. “We’ve got some unbelievable players in the squad, and everyone drives each other on. I think naturally you need an element of nastiness in you, from that competitive side of things, to push each other on. I think that lends itself to the best performance possible.”
