Eddie Jones believes England will learn a lot of lessons from their defeat to Wales and described Wayne Pivac’s side as “worthy winners” after their 40-24 triumph in Cardiff.
First-half tries from Josh Adams and Liam Williams saw Wales open up a 17-14 half-time lead, with Anthony Watson’s score and Owen Farrell’s boot keeping England in range.
Kieran Hardy and Ben Youngs swapped second-half scores as England pulled level with 15 minutes to go before Callum Sheedy put Wales back in front with three penalties.
A late Cory Hill try sealed victory for Wales, securing the Triple Crown in the process, leaving Jones to rue his Red Rose team’s discipline and inability to convert their chances.
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“Obviously a very disappointing result,” he said. “Wales were worthy winners, I thought our boys overcame a tough start to get back into the game and really worked hard to get to 24-all.
“Then we let ourselves down a little bit and probably the last play is indicative of the game. I think we got into their 22 eight times, they got into our 22 six times.
“We’re in there and we get intercepted and they score down the other end. The score indicates a substantial win for Wales but I don’t think that indicates the actual game.
“We played some good rugby today. As I said, we got in their 22 eight times I think to their six which usually gives an indication to the quality of your play.
“But you’ve got to be able to convert that which we weren’t able to do. We’re pleased with the effort of the team, no one can say we aren’t a hard-working, honest group.
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“And we’ll learn from this. It’s a great lesson for us, it’s a great lesson. It’s five-game tournament, we’ve got two to go and the next game is going to be the most important.
“We want to play better in the next game than we did this game.”
Wales have now won all three of their 2021 Guinness Six Nations games and remain on course to clinch the Grand Slam, with Italy and France lying in wait in the final two rounds.
The result was Wales’ highest points tally against England and Jones praised Pivac for the job he has done since taking over from Warren Gatland after a tough start in the role.
“That’s what the scoreboard says [record Wales win] so congratulations to them,” Jones said. “They’ve been through a tough period and we understand that, they’ve come out of it.
“So well done to Wayne and his team, we’ve only got great admiration for what they’ve done.”
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Defending champions England have lost two of their opening three games and while captain Farrell took encouragement from their fightback, he said their discipline needs to improve.
“We can only control what we can control and obviously our discipline wasn’t the best,” he said. “There’s obviously lots of parts of the game and that was probably a big one.
“We clawed our way back in the second half and we weren’t able to finish the job. It was a tough Test match, I thought it was a hard-fought game.
“I thought our boys’ effort and intent was good but at the same time it wasn’t good enough to win the game so we’ll have to look at what we can do and we can control.”
