England 16-15 Scotland: Calcutta Cup Six Nations player ratings
Sat, 22 Feb 2025, 20:36
Full Content
Full article content available
England
Marcus Smith
Tested out aerially early on and given a torrid time by Duhan van der Merwe. Shanked clearance kick but scored his goals. Slightly more dangerous after break.6
Tommy Freeman
Strong finish for England’s first try after already showing skills under high ball. Van der Merwe gave him plenty to think about though.7
Ollie Lawrence
Might have done better with attempted tackle on Van der Merwe. Quiet until his break up middle but did he have to go for offload?7
Henry Slade
Some excellent covering tackles and as leader of the defence he has to take credit with the way England hung in there in the first half.8
Ollie Sleightholme
Struggled to make an impact in the first half given Scotland had so much of the ball. Chased kicks but that isn’t really his game. Hooked early.6
Fin Smith
Kicked a lot from hand – so much so it provoked a few groans – but showed his defensive capabilities with huge tackle on Jordan. Ultimately the match-winner again.7
Alex Mitchell
Ponderous and kicked far too often for the Twickenham crowd’s liking. Bizarre as he was imperious against France but taken off after an hour here.6
Ellie Genge
Another strong scrummaging performance and relished the physical stuff, thundering on to the Scottish defence. Made his tackles too.7
Luke Cowan-Dickie
Chop tackle on Pierre Schoeman had Twickenham wincing; he brought typical aggression during his 47 minutes of action.7
Will Stuart
It has largely gone unnoticed but he has developed into one of England’s most reliable and consistent performers. A Lion in waiting.8
Maro Itoje
Did his best to disrupt Scotland’s lineout and made an impressively acrobatic turnover. Chalk this up as another notch for England’s captain.8
Ollie Chessum
Big tackle on Grant Gilchrist, big clearout on Zander Fagerson – a big impact on his first start for 11 months. Discipline wasn’t great but kept soldering on. Impressive.7
Tom Curry
Hip constantly bothering him but another heroic showing before hobbling off in agony. Scotland might have been out of sight by half-time if not for his efforts.7
Ben Earl
A couple of overzealous penalties given away after making it clear in the buildup that he was fired up for this one. Linked well with Marcus Smith.7
Tom Willis
Injured shoulder in some friendly fire from Genge and made way shortly before half-time. A few surges, a few meaty tackles up until then.6
REPLACEMENTS
J George (for Cowan-Dickie, 45) Big impact
8
; F Baxter (for Genge, 58) Super sub7
; J Heyes (for Stuart, 71) Rolled up sleeves7
; T Hill (for Chessum, 80) n/a; C Cunningham-South (for T Curry, 47) Better8
; B Curry (for Willis, 36) Whirling dervish8
; H Randall (for Mitchell, 60)6
; E Daly (for Sleightholme, 45) Dangerous7
Scotland
Blair Kinghorn
Rangy runner and looks dangerous when he carries the ball in both hands but for all that he threatened, he couldn’t deliver a telling blow.7
Kyle Rowe
Picked clever lines and made some decent yardage but his high tackle on Chessum proved to be a costly mistake.6
Huw Jones
Gave away an early penalty but recovered to score sixth Six Nations try against England and 16th overall. Always wriggling.7
Tom Jordan
Silky stuff. Delightful pass inside to White for opening score but couldn’t quite make a telling break or pass after that for all his endeavour.6
Duhan van der Merwe
Steamrollered into Marcus Smith a few times and had a hand in Scotland’s two first-half tries. Seemed to be playing on fast forward at times and finally got his score.8
Finn Russell (co-capt)
Given plenty of time which made him a constant threat. Struggled to completely carve England open. Missed three conversions including the all important one.6
Ben White
On hand to score opening try and provided Russell with plenty of clean ball. Zippy scrum-half who will fancy his British & Irish Lions chances.6
Pierre Schoeman
Had a hard time in the scrum up against Stuart. Made some carries in heavy traffic up the middle though and didn’t disappoint in that regard.5
Dave Cherry
Unheralded member of an unheralded front row but did little wrong, getting through lots of work and hitting his darts.7
Zander Fagerson
Came off second best to Genge at scrum time and will have liked to have done his British & Irish Lions chances more good than this.6
Jonny Gray
Scotland ran an impressive lineout, full of unusual plays, and the former Exeter lock played his part in that. Solid.6
Grant Gilchrist
Might have taken the “weedy” forwards accusation personally. Excellent both sides of the ball and an important lineout figure too.7
Jamie Ritchie (Man of the match)
Excellent all-round performance from Scotland’s action man, winning turnovers, defending mauls and showing up well in the lineout.8
Rory Darge (co-capt)
Not as conspicuous as his fellow back-rowers. Got through plenty of work but the Currys had his number at the breakdown.6
Jack Dempsey
Started the match with a strong carry and continued in that vein thereafter. Tough as teak and did not take a backwards step before being replaced.7
REPLACEMENTS
E Ashman (for Cherry, 54) Ticked things over
7
; J Bhatti (for Schoeman, 69)6
; W Hurd (for Z Fagerson, 77) n/a; S Skinner (for Gray, 60) Hit hard6
; G Brown (for Gilchrist, 69)5
; M Fagerson (for Dempsey, 54) Got stuck in7
; J Dobie (for White, 65) Not as much tempo5
; S McDowall (for Jones, 65) Dazzling break7
AI Model Selection
Avg. Response: 10.0s
Llama3.2:1b
MetaSize: 1B
Success Rate: 100.0%
Llama-3.2-1B-Instruct-GGUF
MetaSize: 1B
Success Rate: 100.0%
All models run locally on our servers. Response times may vary based on server load.