Scotland battled all the way against England Photos from Twickenham

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McGeechan, taking charge of his final Calcutta Cup match before stepping down as coach, insisted that the scoreline did not accurately reflect the flow of the game

But he conceded that silly errors had cost his side dearly against such formidable opposition.

"We made mistakes at crucial times and England are a good enough side with good enough strike players to really do damage, and Jonny Wilkinson doesn't miss too many kicks," he said.

"But I thought there were a lot of good things about our performance and England have had to work very hard for their win.

"That was probably our best performance so far. It's a pity we couldn't get more points - we played particularly well and cleverly with 13 men.

Match report: England 40-9 Scotland

"But you need to be able to turn good rugby into points and that's what England do, but there were a lot of passages of the game that I was delighted with.

"We knew we had to play with our heads up to compete with England at all and I thought that's what we started to do and that's what pleased me most."

McGeechan admitted England were impressive but refused to stick his neck out in choosing a winner for next week's Grand Slam decider between Ireland and England.

"England certainly play very well here (at Twickenham) and it'll be a good game next week in Dublin, but as long as I come away with a win over Italy, I'll be happy."