'England the perfect game for Scotland's salvation army'

Huw Jones can't remember how many touches of the ball he got in the rain in Rome last Saturday, but he knows it wasn't many.

He's sure he had a few in the closing minutes - the 29 phases that ultimately amounted to nothing - but beyond that, the day passed him by.

A Scotland backline built to attack managed the grand total of zero line breaks against Italy - the only nation to draw a blank in this respect on the opening weekend and the first time in many, many years the Scotland attack was so hopelessly blunt.

Zero line breaks is an absolute rarity. Even in the Calcutta Cup monsoon in Edinburgh in 2020 Scotland managed three. The weather was a major factor in Rome, of course, but it didn't stop Italy making six line breaks of their own. They found a way. Jones doesn't hide from it. He can't.

The Calcutta Cup, he says, is the "perfect game" now. Be careful what you wish for and all of that, but you get his point. A heaving Murrayfield, the Scots with their backs to the wall, England on a mighty roll, a shot at redemption. We've all seen this kind of ambush before.

Jones has played in seven Calcutta Cups, winning four, losing three while scoring six tries. It's a fine record, but he concedes that the England coming to Edinburgh this weekend is possibly the strongest of all the England sides he has faced, including the one that did Scotland in cold blood at Twickenham in 2017. Jones scored two tries that day but England won 60-21.

"After a loss when everyone's hurting and when we didn't really get to play, we all have that pent-up frustration and energy," says Jones.

"Even if we'd won I would have come away knowing I didn't get to do anything. I'm really angry about that and this week adds to the fuel of just wanting to go out and show what we can do. It's the perfect one for us to come back to."

Jones drew the short straw on Tuesday. Media duty.

And inevitably more questions about Rome. Just when he thought he was out, we pull him back in. He said the changing room after the 18-15 defeat was one of the toughest he's ever been in. Not a revelation, but he did his best to explain the angst they all felt.

"We've all experienced losses but everyone was really dejected after that," he said.

Then he went through the various stages of defeat - tiredness, confusion, frustration, anger.

"The anger probably comes on the Sunday," he says. "Then you do the review and you have to be very clinical about your review. You try not to let emotions get in the way of that process.

"No-one's hiding. It's horrible and what's tough for the public is that you don't get to be in those conversations, so you're seeing the loss and stewing over it for the whole week but not getting answers because you're not in our meetings.

"Part of being a professional rugby player is you have to get back to work immediately and you have to park those emotions - but you use that as fuel."

The loss has been analysed but not exorcised is his gist.

He speaks about the team battling their way downfield and getting good field position. A penalty to Scotland and a chance of points, then a reversal on account of poor discipline and they're back to where they started. That happened twice, on top of all their other woes.

"Those are really difficult to take. You've got to get up and go again. I felt that we kept doing that - wrestling that momentum to get downfield but we kept letting ourselves down when we got there.

"I don't think that's a psychological thing, I think that's execution. Once you get down there we just have to be better. The first 20 minutes was where the game was lost.

"They got two chances off launches and scored within three phases. We also got down their end early on and did nothing with it," added Jones, with the two attacking lineouts that were lost in Italy's 22 coming to mind.

Part of the job this week is locking out the negativity that is banging on their door. He knows that England have suffered at Scotland's hands many times in recent years and that they'll be playing on that.

There is no Scottish monopoly on edge just because they're fighting to right some wrongs from Rome.

"They're on a big run of victories at the moment and they've got a great squad," Jones said.

"They've developed almost an all-court game where they've got their big pack expecting to be dominant in most games but they've also got brilliant athletes and good ball-players as well. It's a tough prospect."

For Jones and his salvation army it's a day to gird the loins and fight back. In front of their own people, if they have anything about them, there's surely some thunder coming on Saturday.