England 16-12 Scotland
Jack Leahy
Sports Editor
Only a catastrophic failure from Argentina on Sunday can save Scotland’s World Cup after a breathless encounter eventually finished in England’s favour.
Scotland started the stronger of the two as Chris Paterson arrowed a very tricky penalty through the posts from near the left touchline.
Dan Parks added another penalty soon after after touch judge Nigel Owens referred the awarding of the points to the Test Match Official (TMO).
Jonny Wilkinson, whose radar was deactivated once again, added a penalty before Parks took a drop-goal to send Scotland in 9-3 ahead at half-time.
Scotland needed to win to qualify, and to deny England a bonus point in doing so. They held a nine-point lead for all of 40 seconds as Jonny Wilkinson landed a drop-goal of his own in response to Paterson’s 56th-minute penalty.
Wilkinson, who missed four attempts at goal, added another penalty six minutes later after a furious passage of end-to-end play knocked the stuffing out of Andy Robinson’s men.
And mercurial winger Chris Ashton was on hand to seal England’s passage into the quarter-finals as he finished expertly having collected Toby Flood’s looping pass.
The encounter was a typically tense one between the sport’s two oldest rivals as both sides played an ugly but absorbing brand of rugby.
It was Scotland who started the brightest, throwing the kitchen sink at England with a high-tempo game marshalled by the pack. Their initial exploits looked to have been hampered after barely five minutes when out-half Ruadhraí Jackson suffered a game-ending injury.
His replacement was Dan Parks, who proved himself perfectly suited to the conditions. He probed and punished in equal measure, giving his side the lead after four minutes on the pitch after perpetual infringer Dan Cole was penalised at the scrum.
He added his second after Cole was penalised for not rolling away. James Hook was surely watching with interest as touch judge Owens advised referee Craig Joubert to check with the TMO that the ball had gone over the bar. It had.
Concerns over the ball used for the tournament, almost exclusively Anglican at this stage, were exacerbated once again as Wilkinson failed to find the target after Richie Vernon and Ross Ford were penalised.
He eventually found his range when Ford was pinged for entering a ruck form the side, but Parks’ well-taken drop from short range sent Scotland in at half-time with a 9-3 lead – not enough to take them through.
Martin Johnson gathered his troops in the dressing room and delivered what looked like an expletive-laden tirade. His side stood up like men scolded in the second period, attacking with direction and purpose as Delon Armitage was stopped just short having been set up by the ever-improving Manu Tuilagi.
For all the cut and thrust they of which they showed signs of developing, the scoreboard failed to reflect their resurgence as Wilkinson missed a drop at goal from practically in front of the posts.
England had begun to impose themselves upon the game, but Scotland were traditionally unwavering as Parks cleaned up a dangerous England raid on the Scottish 22.
England returned to a position of safety as Wilkinson dropped a goal from 40 metres with his bad foot. Another effort was charged down, leading to a desperate Scottish counter-attack that, several incidents later, allowed the Toulon out-half to cut the deficit to three with a penalty.
The men in blue had failed to score a try in the previous two World Cup games, and could hardly have come any closer than when Parks spotted space out wide and angled a driven kick in the direction of Richie Gray. It took all of Tom Croft’s considerable athleticism to just about beat Gray to the grounding of the ball in-goal.
Captain Mike Tindall limped off having been trod on by his centre partner Tuilagi, and his being replaced by Toby Flood was ultimately the decider of the clash. After Wilkinson missed his fourth kick, Flood arrived to tackle Joe Ansbro into touch after Tuilagi had failed to control him.
And Flood was on hand to fling a beautiful long pass to Ashton, who belied an otherwise absolute lack of impact on the game to finish as he always does in the corner. Flood’s conversion finally killed the game and set up a quarter-final encounter with France. With both sides looking beatable but with the talent to beat anyone, anything can happen.
