Jones: ’The Scots were too good for us’

Eddie Jones denied a prematch scuffle showed his side had lost their heads at BT Murrayfield yesterday.

Players from both sides had to be pulled apart in the tunnel before the kick-off and England were strangely out of sorts, lacking discipline and racking up a startling 13 penalties with replacement No. 8 Sam Underhill sinbinned for a no-arms tackle on Jamie Bhatti.

Asked if that proved his team had lost the plot in the 25-13 Calcutta Cup defeat, the coach said: “I don’t think so. These things happen.

“The penalty count wasn’t flash today. We’re going to have to sit down and have a look at why so many penalties and work out the reasons for it.

“It’s never nice to get beat, especially up here, but they deserved their victory and I’m sure they’ll have a great night.

“Congratulations to Scotland – they were too good for us.

“It’s human nature, we just weren’t in the game the first 40, Scotland played well, full marks to Scotland.

“We knew what we were going to get, but we just didn’t meet the challenge today for some reason.

“Second half I was really proud of the effort from the boys, we really stuck in there and won the second half.”

Victorious Scotland skipper John Barclay praised under-pressure stand-off Finn Russell, who, after two poor matches on the trot, was named man of the match.

Barclay said: “I predicted on Friday that Finn Russell would be man of the match, and he was. That’s the nature of the guy, his character.

“He plays on that line. He knows he didn’t have his best games in the first two games and today he was outstanding.

“He’s one of the best stand-offs in the world.”