Press Conference - England must learn tough lessons

Eddie Jones watched his England team squander a 31-point lead on Super Saturday to end their 2019 Guinness Six Nations on a sour note.

After letting a 10-3 lead slip in Cardiff in Round Three of the Championship, as well as Tests against the Springboks and All Blacks in the past year, Jones has noticed a recurring theme.

And despite ending up with a 38-38 draw thanks to George Ford’s late intervention, Jones was loathe to take many positives from his side’s second-place finish in the Championship.

“It’s a bit of a reoccurring theme for us, three or four times in the last 12 months we have taken control of a game, let our foot off the gas and been unable to get control back,” he said.

“These are problems the team have had, maybe before I had them. We need to get the right people in to fix it.

Jack Nowell, Tom Curry, Joe Launchbury and Jonny May all went over in the first half to open up a 31-0 lead for the hosts – who have not lost at home to Scotland since 1983.

But Scotland came roaring back thanks to Finn Russell’s brilliance and Darcy Graham’s double and looked like they had won it when Sam Johnson went over.

Ford then came back to rescue England and earn a share of the spoils.  

“Our first half was exceptional, we should have been ahead by a lot more. But when we came in at half time we spoke about playing tighter with more discipline but failed to do that,” he added.  

“It is a great lesson for us, and or finishers did exceptionally well to get us out of jail in the end. But we are disappointed in the 80 minutes as a whole.

“It is a combination of things, the lack of discipline to do the simple things over and over. We got seduced by the scoreboard.

“Scotland came back really well, they have got plenty of heart, plenty of pace and endeavour so a lot of credit to them.”

And captain Owen Farrell – who has withdrawn in the second half as England chased a turnaround – went along with his head coach’s assessment.

“It is definitely mental, we saw in the first 20 minutes how good we were physically,” he said.

“I think when Scotland did come back, they got that momentum and it probably shocked us a bit too much.

“We talked about staying calm and sticking to the process, but obviously it didn’t work out that way.”

via SixNationsRugby.com