Eddie Jones takes ‘full responsibility’ for England defeat by Scotland

John Barclay’s been through an quake in the last week – so England should be no great shakes.

England’s Grand Slam hopes went up in smoke at BT Murrayfield where Scotland claimed their first Calcutta Cup in ten years with a stunning 25-13 victory.

The team’s current skipper, John Barclay, certainly gave that impression this week as he insisted that Eddie Jones’ side – who have lost just one Six Nations match since the Australian took charge two years ago – are beatable.

England travels to Murrayfield for an eagerly awaited Calcutta Cup clash on Saturday, and Shaw says there is room for improvement ahead of what he expects to be a big test in Edinburgh.

The key to that for Scotland is a performance from Finn Russell and Barclay believes it will come this afternoon.

“I wouldn’t put a number on how much more there is to come because that starts putting limits on the players”.

“All week we said that if we wanted to win this game we had to put everything we had into it”. But, as they had done throughout the game, Scotland weathered the storm and ended the match with another superb turnover. They kicked away possession and Scotland were in dreamland by the break.

There were allegations that Farrell, who scored all of England’s points, was involved in a scuffle before the game in the tunnel with footage appearing to show the England centre shoving Scotland No 8 Ryan Wilson.

The Scotland of pre-tournament speculation had arrived, and Jones extended the lead further with another score, dashing between Farrell and Nathan Hughes, before powering over the line with Watson and Mike Brown hanging from him, a 16-point halftime advantage secured by Laidlaw’s boot.

The second half seen England show some resolve as Farrell crossed over to reduce the deficit early in the half.

He said: “We know we’ve got Ireland, an outstanding team with a great record”.

Launchbury is to win his 50th England cap having made his debut against Fiji in 2012 while Hartley becomes the nation’s second most capped player by surpassing the 91-appearance mark set by Jonny Wilkinson.

But the home side looked far more likely than the visitors to score and almost did again when Jones kicked down the right touchline only for Ford and Watson to combine to clear up.

“Like I said, we’ve been through it, we know what to expect, let’s jump in ourselves”.

It was a complete performance by the Scottish team, recovering most of the verve and cutting edge they had in the Autumn Tests during a remarkable first half, and then hanging on with some courageous and determined defence in the old tradition in the second. “We forced mistakes. We discussed opportunities we felt we could create and it was pleasing the way we took them”.

It was a first win over England in 10 years, and there was a revelry and electricity inside Murrayfield not witnessed or felt in years.

“You could see the motivation they were trying to instil in everyone else and it paid off”. We will learn a lot from this.