Russell’s high-risk high-reward strategy paid off, says try hero

“The forwards do the hard graft to give us the opportunities. It’s just been me getting the glory a few times,” added Jones.

He paid fulsome tribute to playmaker Finn Russell, who bounced back from the criticism levelled at him in the first two games with maybe his greatest performance for Scotland. “Finn is Finn,” he said.

“He’s different to anyone I know. “He’s got amazing confidence and we’ve all got massive confidence in him and his ability. I think he got helped out a lot by the other senior players this week. He’s been chatting to Greig a lot and I think it definitely helped him.

“That pass (to start the move for Maitland’s try) I think most 10s I’ve played with could probably do it, but only Finn would have the confidence. People say he’s high-risk, high-reward and we got the reward today.”

Jones added he appreciated what the Calcutta Cup meant looking at how veterans John Barclay and Greig Laidlaw prepared for the game.

“You could see how much it meant to the guys that have been around for a while, Barcs and Greig particularly,” he said.

“To see their faces after the game and how much it meant to them, it means the world to all of us, but those guys that have been around for a while and had some not so good times in a Scotland shirt, it’s just massive for them.”

Head coach Gregor Townsend branded the win as “an affirmation of the rugby we aspire to play” but conceded that his team had to replicate that form away from Murrayfield.

“That is going to be the challenge,” he said.

“It’s a twin challenge in that we have to look at Ireland closely, what we need to do to beat them and what we need to do to get our game in place.

“But it is also about how we do much better away from home. It has been an issue for Scottish teams since the Six Nations began.

“We have to make sure we played close to our potential. We have to make sure we are focused and ready and able to play accurate rugby. We obviously didn’t do that in Cardiff.

“As a group, we talked straight after that game about what we had to do better in terms of our mental focus. But we knew we would not have another opportunity for a month because we had two big games at home to play. We will turn our attention to (playing away) next week.”

Townsend also paid tribute to his lieutenant Dan McFarland for the way he had the Scottish pack working, stalling the English maul and gaining parity in the scrum.

“Dan has been outstanding in terms of the detail, whether that’s around the contact area or the lineout. We made huge advances in November with the way we maul in attack and defence I thought we did that really well today.

“Our scrum has been really solid. That’s a big credit to Dan.”

Scotland’s one injury worry was a heavy knock sustained by Tommy Seymour that saw him helped off after just over an hour to give 21-yearold Blair Kinghorn his debut, but the wing was walking freely during the after-match celebrations.