FARRELL FACES TUNNEL BUST-UP PROBE

It’s been like a celebrity show with hot trousers and Big Brother cameras

OWEN FARRELL is facing a disciplinary probe after England and Scotland were last night ordered to explain themselves over the tunnel bust-up before Saturday’s Calcutta Cup clash. Television footage showed the England rugby union vice-captain being pulled away from Scotland players by his team-mates shortly before kick-off. Sportsmail understands the altercation was triggered by Scottish No 8 Ryan Wilson, who allegedly elbowed Farrell as the players returned to the changing rooms at the same time after warming up. Six Nations disciplinary chiefs contacted England and Scotland yesterday to demand their full version of events. ‘Six Nations Rugby will be writing to the unions to request clarification on what happened in the tunnel,’ a spokesperson said. Once the unions have responded, tournament organisers will decide whether to launch disciplinary proceedings.

NEVER judge a team by one performance — good or bad — is a pretty good maxim but as the dust settles this week, England and Eddie Jones need to acknowledge they have some major issues to deal with in the remainder of the Six Nations and on the summer tour of South Africa.

This is something he has never had to deal with as head coach. His only other loss, against Ireland, was at the end of the Six Nations and England had already won the championship.

This is different and it will be fascinating to see how he and his team handle it.

If everyone had played to their best then this game would have been won. The facts are that, to a man, they did not and that is something that should be deeply worrying. I have written in recent months that England were going to encounter some bumps this season and lose at least a couple of matches, but I didn’t think Scotland would be one of them, although I suspected it would be close and they would raise their game.

Ireland at home, perhaps Wales at home and even France away, I felt, were the dangerous games but the Six Nations throws up surprises.

This has been coming. England’s great run under Eddie (below) has not been quite as impressive as the bare statistics suggest. Their best rugby for me was still nearly 20 months ago when they defeated Australia 3-0 away. Now, that was awesome.

Since then they have been grinding out wins, doing enough and getting themselves out of tight corners, which is to be commended but with the odd exception — Scotland last year — they weren’t taking teams apart. England haven’t been kicking on as you would like but they have kept winning and that makes change a bit tricky.

Jones will not be short of advice from fans and media, so it is important for him and his team that they just take it on the chin, keep their heads down and prepare better than ever for the France game — which now looks like a banana skin.

There are many lessons to be learned from Saturday and for me the biggest one — and somebody has to say it because nobody at Twickenham will address the issue — is that the team have become too much like some sort of celebrity show in recent weeks.

There are so many things we could list but even on Friday, the day before a massive game, we were reading about ‘hot trousers’ and Big Brother surveillance cameras watching players interact and how they conduct themselves between training sessions.

I see this so often in professional sport when coaches seem to want to tell the world all the wonderful things they are doing. I have no problem with innovation and left-field thinking in sport. In fact, I love it, but keep it in-house.

Talk about it, dine out on it when you have won Olympic gold medals or World Cups. It was a trap Jones’s predecessor Stuart Lancaster fell into and I am surprised that a coach of Eddie’s experience allowed this to happen.

The verbals before the Wales game were also far too personal for my liking and that nearly backfired. Wales could, and possibly should, have won.

In fact, if you look at the last hour when England went right off the boil, perhaps Saturday’s turgid start wasn’t so surprising — it was just more of the same.

There are areas that need sorting out, starting with back-row balance. Before the Six Nations I made finding a No 7 the absolute priority but England are fudging the issue. They were starting the promising Sam Simmonds at No 8 until he was injured, bringing Sam Underhill off the bench and not playing Zach Mercer. So, Chris Robshaw has been stepping in, Eddie’s famous six and a half.

Robshaw did well in the first two games and was England’s best forward overall on Saturday, but in the crucial area of turnover and winning the ball on the ground, he and the England back row got wiped out by the Scottish breakaways. Is Courtney Lawes a Test six against high- class opposition? The evidence suggests otherwise. Do England need to get Robshaw back to six, start Hughes at No 8 in the absence of Billy Vunipola and give one of the youngsters their head at seven?

I really like Dylan Hartley as a player and captain, but I feel sorry for him and the team when, after 55 minutes, he is taken off once again.

That is the moment when you need your captain, your talisman, to lead and take control. I have said it before and will say it again, with 25 minutes to go I want my best team on the field of play. My starters, not my finishers!

GEORgE FORD is a gifted player and most of the time brings the best out of Owen Farrell at inside centre, but a common theme is that he doesn’t cope well behind packs that are struggling — either at Leicester, late on at Bath or with England.

You need somebody who can still challenge the opposition defence when on the back foot. You need a Danny Cipriani-type player in this position and his absence from England squads under Johnson, Lancaster and Jones is one of rugby’s great mysteries!

When it comes to Mike Brown, Eddie was very quick to defend him after a fine defensive performance against Wales — and turn on his critics — but his limitations were exposed again against Scotland. At his attacking best he would be in my team, but we have not seen this for a couple of years.

It is legitimate for people to suggest other options at full-back and England possibly need to consider that.

And why were England so slow out of the blocks on Saturday? They seemed to be playing in slow motion in the first half. What went wrong with the preparation? One thing you could guarantee is that Scotland would come flying out, playing at 100mph and England needed to be ready, yet they looked horribly naive and callow.

Scotland played like it was their World Cup final. England seemed to ignore the history of this fixture.