Townsend proud of players after Calcutta Cup win over England

Gregor Townsend says he is “thankful and proud” of his Scotland team after they secured a fourth Calcutta Cup win over England in the last five years.

The head-coach was speaking following his side’s 20-17 win over the Auld Enemy at Murrayfield on Saturday.

And he also had praise for the home support for the “amazing” atmosphere that helped spur them on to the win.

He said: “It was far from perfect and I think the weather had something to do with that when it was so wet.”

“We knew we were going to be against the wind in the first half and we had to absorb a lot of phased attack from England. We had to be in our half for the majority of that time and we weren’t really able to build phase upon phase, through our own errors at times.

“But it was great to see our play executed really well through Darcy Graham and Ben White for the first try. We felt we hadn’t fired a huge amount of shots in the first half but we were still leading and we knew in the second we would have a slight advantage with the wind.

“Having said that, the third quarter was the poorest part of the game for us. We’re all thankful and proud of how we played in that final quarter, which was telling.”

Townsend felt their dramatic victory in front of a pumped-up crowd in Edinburgh was just as enjoyable as last year’s historic win away to England.

“This feels just as good as winning at Twickenham,” he said. “It felt like a victory of huge effort that could have gone either way.

“I felt England played really well so to actually come out on the right end of a tight tussle makes up for the arm-wrestle we lost against them (at Murrayfield) two years ago.

“To hear and feel that atmosphere was amazing. We missed the crowd at this fixture last year so to have them back in full voice was special.”