Alun Wyn Jones stops short of criticising Jonathan Davies and Alex Cuthbert as errors cost Wales shot at famous victory

Alun Wyn Jones appeared to be on the cusp of criticising the individual decision that cost Wales victory in their Six Nations encounter against England at the weekend, before stopping himself and admitting “we win as a team, we lose as a team”.

Wales were five minutes from a famous victory over England that would not only have maintained their Six Nations Grand Slam dreams, but halted Eddie Jones’s 100 per cent record that now stretches to 16 games unbeaten. The Welsh lock, who succeeded Sam Warburton as national team captain this year, has never been one to mince his words, and he was brutally honest about how his side failed to hold on against their fiercest rivals on Saturday evening.

“There was a lot of emotion in the game but I don’t think it was solely played on that,” Jones said afterwards. “We were a bit more clinical – or tried to be at times – tried to be smarter, use the ball more, but ultimately it was a performance that fell short. A vast improvement on the 35 minutes that have probably been missing in the past but we fell short. Simple as.”

But it was his comments on what happened in that 75th minute that really struck home. Centre Jonathan Davies failed to find touch with a poor clearance kick from deep in his own try area, with regular kicker Dan Biggar recovering from a ruck, and that allowed George Ford the chance to trigger an England counter-attack.

Shifting the ball through the hands of Owen Farrell, a sumptuous pass on the move from the inside centre released Elliot Daly, who outpaced the tired Alex Cuthbert to score in the corner and win the match. That Davies and Cuthbert, who was drafted in on the day of the match when George North was ruled out, were at fault appeared to play on Jones’s mind afterwards, but he wasn’t going to call out his own teammates for their errors.

“I’m very cautious in what I say because we win as a team, we lose as a team,” he said. “There were errors and penalties that piggy back then, down the park. If we kick loosely we’ve got to then open out. We didn’t open out and gave them an edge.

“I think we go back a few years, ‘earning the right to go wide’ was the buzz phrase everyone was saying. Now they talk about edges and they had that today when we didn’t open out. It’s a pretty basic thing.”

Where Warburton may have described the pain of such a harsh defeat in the past, Jones let out a stern “no” when asked if the loss was one of his most frustrating results to take. He also called on the entire squad to “improve as a team”, but was prepared to carry the decision not to take shots at goal when offered on his own shoulders.

“We had one scrum in the 22 where we had a good outcome considering it was the first scrum in the game,” Jones added. “I asked the front row whether they wanted to go again. Yes, they did. It turned but you know in hindsight we had a scrum the other side and we got a try. That was pretty much it, really. I was a feel thing. If it’s wrong it’s on me and I come to take responsibility.”