Scotland 0-20 England
Lancaster: I wanted more from England
ESPN Staff
February 8, 2014
Luther Burrell continued to impress on the international stage © Getty Images
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Stuart Lancaster admits he was 'frustrated' England did not win by a greater margin despite a comfortable 20-0 victory over Scotland at Murrayfield.

Tries from Luther Burrell and Mike Brown in either half helped England retain the Calcutta Cup and put their Six Nations title hopes back on track after last week's defeat to France. Scotland were poor throughout but, despite enjoying dominance in the stats in terms of possession, England struggled to make their dominance show on the scoreboard.

It was the first time since 1978 Scotland had been kept scoreless and the performance of new centre pairing Burrell and Billy Twelvetrees, especially, pleased Lancaster, but he insists England will have to do better in their back-to-back home games against Ireland and Wales.

"We were pleased with a lot of aspects, but are frustrated that we didn't convert more of our opportunities because we dominated the second half," Lancaster said. "There were chances there that we didn't take and we definitely have regrets over the points we left out there. We played some really good stuff in difficult conditions. Scotland had to defend desperately."

England leave Scotland in the mire

  • "While England played with urgency and accuracy in the set piece, Scotland failed to make any dent in the away side's defence and never got a grounding in the match as their lineout floundered and the state of the pitch meant for the props, attempting to get some grip in the scrum was akin to packing down on an ice rink wearing slippers."
  • Read the full verdict here

"The work that [assistant coaches] Andy Farrell and Mike Catt have done with Luther and Billy is really paying off. The timing and number of options going into the line were excellent and Luther's try was a good case in point.

"They're going well as a partnership, especially given that they've only trained together for two weeks and have played twice. They'll need to be on top of their game against the Irish centres, who are clearly world class."

Ireland look to be favourites for a Grand Slam after defeating Wales but Lancaster insists nobody in the England camp wrote off their title chances despite their opening day defeat.

"Even though we lost to France we always felt we're still in it," he added. "It does set us up for an important game against Ireland. Ireland have played two, won two and have played really well. But we're confident also."

For Scotland boss Scott Johnson, he was also left frustrated by his team's performance. "I've got a sore neck from looking down one end of the field for the entire second half," Johnson said. "We wanted to turn them a little bit. We didn't want to let them have too many line-outs in our half. As it turned out they had 16 in our 22. It didn't work out

"On the back of the set-pieces, we lost a couple of balls and a bit of confidence and ended up trying to kick-out of positions that we were not strong in. So the execution of the strategy wasn't great."

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