Eddie Jones: England will ‘never atone’ for Scotland defeat

Eddie Jones says England will never come to terms with Saturday’s 11-6 defeat by Scotland.

The Scots claimed their first victory at Twickenham since 1983 after dominating the Auld Enemy on the 150th anniversary of the first meeting between the rivals.

Gregor Townsend’s underdogs celebrated the win wildly at the final whistle and the only disappointment was that that the scoreline failed to reflect their dominance of the match.

“You never atone for a game like this. This stays with you for a long time,” head coach Jones said.

“But the most important thing is that we get together and we find a way to improve our performance and play like England do when we come up against Italy next week.”

Jones returned to a well-worn theme of blaming himself for one of the worst performances of his reign as England were woefully off the pace, shooting themselves in the foot with a high penalty count.

“We just couldn’t find a way to get into the game. On a day like this the set-piece will always be important, the contest in the air will be important, the gainline will be important, and we couldn’t win any of those areas,” Jones said.

“We just seemed to be off the pace and I have to blame myself, I didn’t prepare the team well enough.

“The players play the game but sometimes you have those days and we had one today. Scotland played very well.

“They had a particular game plan which they stuck to and executed really well. They had enormous possession in the first half and a big penalty count and we’ve only got ourselves to blame for the discipline issues. It was just one of those days.”

A first half try from Duhan van der Merwe told only a fraction of the story as Gregor Townsend’s men put in a bruising 80 minutes where the Six Nations holders were unable to get a foothold in the match.

It was a Scotland performance that will be remembered for decades to come.

Captain Stuart Hogg said it was an “unbelievable” feeling to captain the side to their first Calcutta Cup win away to England for 38 years.

And the full-back insisted the squad travelled south full of the belief that they could end the wait.

Speaking after the match, Hogg said: “I am a proud Scotsman like the rest of the boys involved in today’s game and we truly believed that we could come down here and win.

“To have actually done it is an unbelievable feeling.”

Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend described the win as one of the highlights of his career.

He said: “It has got to be up there as one of our best ever results in our history and certainly in my playing and coaching career.

“I go back to three years ago at Murrayfield because of the atmosphere and the way the players played but today they were outstanding too in really tricky conditions.

“To win in these conditions against a very good side with the record they have here is a fantastic achievement.”