Cotter reflects on frustrating night

In front of a packed BT Murrayfield who were in full voice throughout, Scotland lost 15-9 to England in Eddie Jones’ first game as head coach for the visitors. The home side showed glimpses of what they are capable of but ultimately fell short leaving Scotland head coach Vern Cotter disappointed by the result.Afterwards he said: “It was a frustrating night and we probably weren’t accurate enough.”We created enough opportunities to win the game but we just weren’t accurate enough in keeping the ball.”In the air we need to get better but the positive thing is we need to get it right very quickly.”As a team we can get so much better. In the second period we never got out of our half and there was a couple of lost balls.”Scotland were within touching distance of England for so long during the match and afterwards Cotter singled out a few incidents, which, if they had gone another way, may have allowed Scotland to reign victorious.”We intercepted the ball in the second half and if we had ran the full length of the pitch then perhaps we would have won the game,” he said.”We have to take this result on the chin and we won’t take anything away from England’s performance. They defended well. “I feel for our players as if we got the drop-goal before half-time we may have turned the game around. The opportunity was there and we worked our way into good positions. “England were big and physical and they held the ball well. They were playing a percentage game and at time we didn’t move the ball back into their half as much as we should have.Next weekend Cotter’s men travel to Cardiff to take on Wales who kick-start their RBS 6 Nations campaign against Ireland tomorrow.Ahead of that match, Cotter is excited about the challenge they present.”There is so much more to come from this team and we’re looking forward to next week.”There will be improvements all over the park next week. We’ll be looking at developing our performance and I’m looking forward to Monday already.”Accompanying Vern Cotter in the press conference was his captain Greig Laidlaw who was honest in his post-match assessment and knows there is more to come from this group of players.Laidlaw said: “We’ve got to learn quickly as we know this tournament is hard. We can’t feel sorry for ourselves.”We’ve got to be brutal with each other next week as we ran into touch and gave a few a couple of dumb penalties. All of these things add up.”We’ve got to go to Wales next week and believe in ourselves.”