Eddie Jones to hold full inquest into England’s poor performance after Six Nations defeat by Scotland

Eddie Jones will hold a full inquest into what happened to his England side this weekend after their Six Nations hopes went up in smoke in a 25-13 defeat by Scotland, leaving Ireland in pole position to win the title for the first time in three years.

A terrible first-half performance from England, in which they conceded three tries, left them a mountain to climb as they trailed 22-6 at the break, and despite improving throughout the second half at Murrayfield they were always going to come off second best due to the biggest half-time deficit they’ve ever conceded to the Scots.

Added to this was the pre-match incident involving Owen Farrell and a number of Scottish players in the tunnel as the two teams returned from the warm-up. Details on what actually happened remain unclear, but BBC cameras picked up a fracas between the players before kick-off and, upon reflecting on the incident at half-time, former England captain Martin Johnson noted “it’s been England’s best highlight so far” in obvious jest at how poor the performance on the pitch was.

Referee Nigel Owens had no jurisdiction over the incident as he does not take control of the match until he blows his whistle for kick-off, but he does have the option of reporting any incident to the match citing commissioner. Six Nations has now written to both the Rugby Football Union and Scottish Rugby Union to ask for their observations, while Police Scotland confirmed on Sunday that there were no reports made to them from the clash.

It's understood that Scottish No 8 Ryan Wilson was also involved.

Jones confirmed afterwards that “in all seriousness I don’t know about it”, and when asked by the BBC specifically about the Farrell incident and whether England lost their heads, he added: “Look I don’t know, I don’t think so.”

But what Jones does know is that England came off second best to Scotland by an unacceptable margin, and he plans to review his preparation plans leading up to the match to try and address the three key areas that he believed were most at fault for the nightmare performance.

He said: “We lacked intensity and we’ve got to find out why. We got beaten at the breakdown and we’ve got to find out why. We lacked proper spacing in defence and we’ve got to find out why. So there’s three big ones.”

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Expanding on being dominated at the breakdown – where Scotland secured 10 turnovers to England’s four – Jones added: “We could play tomorrow and the breakdown could be significantly different, so let’s not get too carried away with it. Today, it wasn’t good, but you could turn that around in 24 hours. I don’t know [if it’s a blip or more significant]. If I was a mind-reader I would know but I’m not.

“I thought we were ready to play but we weren’t. Scotland contested the breakdown well and read the referee well. Full credit to them.”

England’s discipline is also a cause for grave concern, given that the defending champions have conceded the most penalties in the tournament so far with the exception of Italy. On top of the ill-discipline, replacement flanker Sam Underhill was shown a yellow card for a shoulder charge on Scottish substitute prop Jamie Bhatti, although Jones labelled it “insignificant” in terms of getting back into the game because his side had left themselves too much to do.

While it is only the second loss in the 26 games under Jones, the fact that both have come at hostile away stadiums – following last year’s loss in Dublin – has led to renewed questions about England’s mental strength to cope with the biggest matches. Jones would not be drawn on the pre-match skirmish, the length of the royal ceremonies or anything else outside of the 80-minute match, but did admit that perhaps the atmosphere on the day got the better of his players.

“We allowed the game to disappoint us at times and there are some good lessons for us,” he explained. “We are trying to develop a strong team but the occasion was too big for us today. Scotland were too good for us. That’s the situation.”

England’s Six Nations title hopes remain alive, but they require either Scotland to do them a favour and beat Ireland in two weeks’ time, or achieve the feat themselves on the final weekend of the championship at Twickenham on 17 March. However, Jones now has two weeks to prepare his side for a trip to Paris to face an out-of-sorts France, and given that he did not see this performance coming, the Australian will not allow himself to look beyond that match in order to avoid another display like this at the Stade de France.