England expose Scottish Mad Max

13 April 2012

The publishers of Scottish Rugby magazine should give an immediate pay rise to their art editor for his failure to produce the front cover requested of him last week.

Asked to combine a picture of Mike Catt with one of Anne Robinson at her most dismissive, he could not achieve a satisfactory mix and, consequently, one of the least prescient headlines of the season never materialised.

'Mike Catt - You Are The Weakest Link.'

Instead, the magazine super-imposed the head of Budge Pountney on the body of Russell Crowe in the garb of a Roman general and had the Scotland flanker urging his troops in the words of the film Gladiator to 'unleash hell'.

There any similarity in script ended.

The only unleashing around was produced by England as Scotland - more like the Light Brigade than a Roman legion - walked into the rugby equivalent of hell, or heaven, depending on your viewpoint.

The written word has a habit of biting the hand that pens it.

By that token Finlay Calder, a Lions captain in the days when he thought the sword mightier, lost a limb on Saturday.

Hopefully, it was the one that regularly embarrasses his countrymen in his Scottish newspaper column.

'If Iain Balshaw's a full back,' he had suggested, 'I'm Mel Gibson.' Calder was a Braveheart in his playing days. Now he is just Mad Max.

Balshaw's running broke the Scots in England's 43-3 victory at Twickenham. It may be a long repair job, judging by results from a weekend of cross -border engagement.

England amassed 198 points in four thumping victories against Scotland - 60 in the A-international, 62 at Under 21 level and 33 in the students match.

Those scoreboards and the one at Twickenham would suggest that if superiority is cyclical, as tends to be the case, we are watching the turning of a Ferris wheel and not the smallest cog in a watch.

'Yes, this is very dangerous for the rest of us,' Ian McGeechan conceded.

But McGeechan wears two hats these days, that of the Scottish coach, of course, and that of a senior statesman within the game - three-times a Lions coach. As one of the most respected figures in rugby, he can pontificate on the global significance of any development.

First, though, there was some domestic business to deal with. 'That was not a bad Scottish side,' he ventured. 'A lot of other countries would have lost by a lot more than that. That was a good England side playing well.

'Manchester United beat Arsenal 6-1.'

It has to be said it was easier to imagine England as United than Scotland as the Gunners.

Disappointed as he was by the defeat, the enthusiast in McGeechan prevailed. 'Rugby league should be worried. Rugby union is getting better and better. I think it is the best it has ever been.

'England had a powerful team in the early Nineties which did not try to do much. The Five Nations Championship suffered. England are now challenging everyone to play their adventurous way and the Six Nations has become so dynamic.

'It was obvious with the organised defences that teams had to learn to attack from all over the field.

'Players are now attacking from touchline to touchline and not just down the middle.

'Professionalism has nurtured young talent and made players more skilful, stronger and fitter.'

Cuter, too, he might have added. Twice in a matter of minutes Matt Dawson did his dying swan bit, emphasis which in the latter case persuaded the otherwise excellent referee to sin bin Pountney.