Captain Jamie Ritchie insists Scotland’s newest Calcutta Cup triumph have to be a springboard to additional successes and never one other false daybreak.
Gregor Townsend’s males toppled rivals England of their opening fixture of the Guinness Six Nations for the third successive yr because of Saturday night’s rousing 29-23 Twickenham victory.
The Scots have been introduced crashing again to earth by subsequent losses to Wales on the earlier two events and ended fourth within the remaining championship desk every time.
While Ritchie was desirous to savour an additional well-known success over the Auld Enemy, he’s decided to eradicate the irritating inconsistency which has prevented his nation pushing on to mount title challenges.
“It’s just the start,” stated the Edinburgh flanker, forward of one other round-two showdown with Wales.
“We’re delighted to win and retain the Calcutta Cup but we’ve been in this position before and not backed it up so for us now it’s enjoy each other’s company and enjoy this victory but come Monday we’re starting again and ready to go.
“It was the first thing we spoke about in the huddle after the win, we all came together and said, ‘look, we’ve been in this position before and we’ve not backed it up’ and that for us is the most important thing.
“A strong tournament for us is five good performances so we will be looking for another one next week.”
Scotland had much less possession and territory than their hosts in London however ruthlessly capitalised on their probabilities.
Duhan van der Merwe’s excellent first-half strive grabbed the headlines and his second rating, six minutes from time, finally proved decisive because the Scots overturned an eight-point deficit to proceed their current dominance of the fixture.
Centre Huw Jones and scrum-half Ben White additionally crossed in a memorable bonus-point win which ruined Steve Borthwick’s maiden match as England head coach.
Ritchie hailed the doggedness of his aspect whereas warning there may be loads of room for enchancment going into subsequent weekend’s BT Murrayfield appointment with Warren Gatland’s Wales.
“I’m proud of how we stayed in the fight and we knew that if we stuck to our plan and we brought energy to how we wanted to play then we would create opportunities,” stated the 26-year-old.
“It was a bit clunky maybe in the first half, our accuracy wasn’t maybe quite there, we coughed up the ball a few times.
“But when we looked to play, we created opportunities and we took enough of them to win the game.
“It’s good but it wasn’t the perfect performance and that’s probably a good thing as well, there’s so much more that we can do better.
“So for us it’s take those good bits, build on them, and improve on the bits that weren’t so good and focus straight on to next week.”
