England coach Steve Borthwick admits Six Nations defeat by Scotland was ‘painful’ after his side suffered a fourth consecutive Calcutta Cup loss for the first time since 1896

England coach Steve Borthwick admitted it was a ‘painful’ evening in Scotland as his team suffered a fourth successive Calcutta Cup defeat for the first time since 1896.

Giant winger Duhan van der Merwe scored a hat-trick to kick off a night of raucous Scottish festivities in Edinburgh.

He punished mistake-ridden England by leaving the Borthwick team licking their wounds as they faced tough tests against Ireland and France.

“What is very clear is that when you make so many handling errors at this level it is very difficult to win, especially against a team of Scottish quality,” Borthwick said.

‘In the end we made it too easy for them to score but they were very clinical. A big lesson for our team as they develop is that this amount of turnover makes it very difficult to win.

‘We would all like progression to be on a nice linear path, but that is not the case, especially at this level. You see a team that is trying to add layers to the game, but today made mistakes. Sometimes you get punished for it, sometimes not. It’s a very painful lesson.’

Scotland are enjoying an eight-year dominance over England in this competition and Borthwick added: ‘The Scotland team have been together for a long time, their 10, 12, 13 have started a dozen Tests together and it’s the first time our 10 , 12 and 13 started together and it seemed like it, didn’t it?

‘There was a lack of coherence in what they did and too many fundamental mistakes. If, after a performance, you think that you have not fully utilized your potential, you are experiencing disappointment. The result on the scoreboard doesn’t matter in that sense, but I don’t think the team maximized their potential today.”

Captain Jamie George made no attempt to hide his disappointment. It ended his team’s unlikely Grand Slam bid, but the hooker believes better days lie ahead.

“If you look at our form in the last nine or 10 games, we’ve won a lot of them,” said George (right). “If you look at the more global picture of where we are as a team, how we are performing and what we are moving towards, and take a step back and look at it as a whole, there are a lot of positive signs.

‘Do we need to get better? Absolute. Are we doing everything we can to do that? Absolute.

‘The fact that we are back at Twickenham (against Ireland on March 9) is very exciting for me. I’ve spoken a lot about the record we want to create at Twickenham, and how difficult it must be for opposition. That will very much be the focus.

‘Ireland are a great team, we know that. They have shown that in recent weeks, months and years, but we will be a very difficult team to beat at Twickenham.”

Scotland coach Gregor Townsend expressed his delight at the win over England, although he challenged the new mouthguard technology that led to prop Zander Fagerson being called off for a Head Injury Assessment (HIA) in the 7th minute.

He said: ‘I saw the tackle again… just a normal tackle. What we have done in recent years is to ensure that, if symptoms are observed, a number of people can identify whether someone is having a HIA.

‘Zander was taken off the field for ten minutes after what looked like a normal tackle, but a spike warning came from the mouthguard.

‘We have to pay attention to that, because you don’t want to take our best players off the field for ten minutes if there are no problems with concussion.

“We want to protect our players, that’s for sure, but there’s still some work to be done before this technology is correct.”