Luke Cowan-Dickie: England Forward Apologises For Costly Error In Six Nations Defeat To Scotland

Luke Cowan-Dickie has apologised to England supporters after conceding a crucial penalty try in Saturday’s Six Nations defeat to Scotland at Murrayfield. 

Having dominated possession and territory, England led by seven points before a moment of madness from Cowan-Dickie saw Scotland awarded a penalty try – to level the scores – and the hooker yellow carded.

The Exeter front row infringed with an intentional knock-on as he batted into touch a Finn Russell kick to prevent Darcy Graham from scoring a likely try, with referee Ben O’Keeffe handing out double punishment before Scotland edged a 20-17 victory.

England head coach Eddie Jones insisted after the game Cowan-Dickie should not be scapegoated, but the forward later took to Twitter to apologise.

“Just want to apologise to all you supporters for today,” Cowan-Dickie wrote.

“I let myself and you guys down. Every time I play for my country I want nothing more than to make you guys proud.

“Thanks for all the support. Looking forward to bouncing back next week!”

Despite his error, Cowan-Dickie was generally impressive, ending the match as England’s most prolific carrier.

“Luke is disappointed, that happens in the moment,” Jones said. “He played exceptionally well and he is very disappointed, but all the boys are supporting him.”

Cowan-Dickie was sent to the sin bin for his infringement

“We have only got ourselves to blame. We are massively disappointed that we lost and Scotland deserved to win, but we dominated a lot of the game but didn’t get the points out of the domination.

“At the end of the day rugby is a pretty simple game – if you dominate you have to get points and you have to get enough to be in front of the opposition at the end.

“The result is the result and it is tough for us to start the tournament like that. We had a good preparation and played with a lot of drive and determination. We will go to Italy next week and be even better.”

Having returned to a full 15-man line-up for the final few minutes, England had a succession of attacking scrums that they were unable to convert into points.

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Eddie Jones said England didn’t make the most of the parts of the game in which they dominated.

O’Keeffe could have rewarded England’s scrum dominance at the end by giving a penalty that would have enabled them to tie the game and the Kiwi was busy in the closing stages of an engrossing match.

In reference to Rassie Erasmus’ lengthy video critique of the officials during South Africa’s victory over the Lions last summer, Jones joked he would emulate the Springboks boss.

“It was three points at the end and the referee becomes pretty influential in those situations,” Jones said.

“Wait for the video, I have got the production team on it now. It is called ‘Rassie In Love With’. That is my production team so I am getting ready.”