EDDIE Jones does not always condescend to be gracious in defeat, but last night he readily accepted that Scotland fully deserved their victory over his England side. There was not much in his team’s 20-17 defeat, according to the head coach, but he acknowledged that his team had failed to turn pressure into enough points during the long stretches of the match when they were on top. 

“We’ve only got ourselves to blame,” Jones said.  “We’re massively disappointed we lost. Scotland deserved to win - we dominated a lot of the game but didn’t get the points out of the domination. 

“At the end of the day rugby is a pretty simple game. If you dominate you have to get points and you have to get enough to be in front of the opposition at the end.

“It was three points at the end and the referee becomes pretty influential in those situations,” he continued, referring to the sequence of scrums in time added on when his team appeared hopeful of being awarded a penalty. “The result is the result and it is tough for us to start the tournament like that. We had a good preparation and played with a lot of drive and determination. We will go to Italy next week and be even better.”

Jones should have a couple of his senior players back for that match to Rome, and, for all that England did have the upper hand at times here, there were other points when their inexperience told. “For a young team I thought we fought really well,” the coach added. “We played well - we just didn’t get the result. 

“In the last game of the Autumn Nations Series] against South Africa we got the penalty at the end. They got the penalty at the end this time. That is the tightness of Test match rugby. We just weren’t quite good enough tonight.”

Before the first game of the Championship, every team talks of the importance of getting off to a winning start. Having failed to do so, Jones insisted that it might make no difference in the end.

“It doesn’t change anything. In the next game we’ll get as many points as we can, the next game we’ll get as many points as we can, the next game we’ll get as many points as we can and then we’re in the last game and if we’re in the hunt for the trophy well and good. If we’re not then we’ll have played some good rugby. Obviously we want to win the competition but it doesn’t change our approach to the competition.”