England forwards impress coach Eddie Jones in Calcutta Cup win over Scotland

06 February 2016 07:23

New England coach Eddie Jones picked out his side's set-piece play as the deciding factor in their 15-9 RBS 6 Nations victory over Scotland.

In Jones' first game in charge since replacing Stuart Lancaster, England got their Six Nations challenge up and running with a hard-fought win at Murrayfield that also helped ease the memory of their miserable World Cup campaign.

Tries from George Kruis and Jack Nowell as well as five points from the boot of Owen Farrell saw England to victory over Scotland, whose response came through three Greig Laidlaw penalties.

Jones was pleased to start his reign with a victory and felt the performance of his side's forwards was key to the triumph.

He said of England's set-piece play: "It won us the game in the end. Our line-out was very good in the second half and our scrum really came to life."

He added on BBC One: " It was always going to be a difficult game, we knew that. We had two weeks together, we were virtually a new team doing new things and I'm really pleased with our application in the second half. O ur defence was outstanding and there were some really good individual performances."

Jones singled out the displays of new captain Dylan Hartley, Dan Cole and James Haskell for praise, as well as that of man of the match Billy Vunipola.

He said of the number eight: " Yeah he's pretty handy, Billy. He's not bad is he? He played really well and his work-rate was fantastic, good carries, good defence."

Regarding his side's overall performance, Jones said: " In all honesty I always thought we were going to win the game, the only way we weren't going to win the game was if we did something silly.

"We wanted to move the ball more, we were practising that, we weren't able to do that and had to play a different way, and that's pragmatic football."

Source: PA