Vunipola singles out two Scots England simply weren't ready for

Mako Vunipola has given a brutally frank assessment of England’s failing against Scotland admitting England “let themselves down” but will learn the painful lessons from their Murrayfield defeat before facing France in Paris on March 10.

England now trail Ireland by five points and meet them in the final round of matches at Twickenham on March 17 but to still be in with a shout of winning a historic third successive title they must overcome the French who gained much-needed confidence with a 34-17 victory over Italy.

Vunipola highlighted England’s problems at the break down where Scotland captain John Barclay and fellow flanker Hamish Watson caused all kinds of problems.

England committed more players to the break down later in the game but had left themselves too much to do having trailed 22-6 at halftime. Vunipola said: “We all realise that wasn’t good enough. We know we’re still growing and right now it’s hurting, but we have to move on and we won’t forget the game.

“We let ourselves down a bit and it comes down to individual responsibility because we had good preparation all week. It comes down to responsibility on the 15 players who each have a role in the team. We just didn’t have that.

“We just weren’t good enough in attack and too slow to get to the ball. I thought Barclay and Watson were very good and we were too slow to react.

“In international rugby if you take too long, one second here and there, the game starts slipping away from you. Scotland did a great job in that area of the breakdown – not just in defence but in attack.

“You can make all these excuses about being due a flat game, that’s not the mentality that we want. We want to go out there and put on our best performance every time.

“Scotland were the better team on the day and we didn’t really give ourselves a chance. Scotland came out and dictated to us in the breakdown area.

“It wasn’t a case of feeling rattled. Scotland controlled territory very well and made it hard for us to get out of our half. Just shows how good a team they were.”