The Leicester Tigers flanker had been out of the international picture since suffering a shoulder injury against South Africa in the autumn, but returned to the England squad after proving his fitness with two starts in the Aviva Premiership.
Croft entered the fray in the closing stages of a tight encounter, then got on the end of a sweeping attack to barge his way over Scotland fly-half Dan Parks and score. Jonny Wilkinson added the conversion but England still had to survive a late Scottish fightback before sealing a 22-16 victory.
“I was just happy to get on the pitch,” Croft said. “We knew it was going to be a tight game, a real battle, and that is how it turned out.
"We made three or four substitutions together and I was just fortunate to be on the end of the pass for the score.
“We had to dig in. It was not pretty, but we’ll take the win.”
England, with Tigers quartet Dan Cole, Louis Deacon, Ben Youngs and Toby Flood in the starting line-up, wrapped up a fourth successive win to set a Grand Slam shot against Ireland next weekend.
“It’s going well but we’ve got a lot to improve on, we'll have a look at it and then we go 100 per cent for Dublin,” said Croft.
