Six Nations 2018: Eddie Jones abused on train to Manchester by Scottish fans after Calcutta Cup misery

Jones was travelling to Old Trafford to watch Manchester United vs Chelsea with Sir Alex Ferguson when he was targeted with both physical and verbal abuse

Eddie Jones was subjected to aggressive taunts from Scotland fans last Sunday celebrating their Six Nations victory over England the night before, with the head coach claiming to be have been physically and verbally abused on a train full of football fans that was travelling from Edinburgh to Manchester for the Manchester United vs Chelsea Premier League encounter at Old Trafford.

The Australian remained in the Scottish capital following the 25-13 defeat at Murrayfield that cost England their Grand Slam chances along with his team, but travelled alone without any representation from the Rugby Football Union [RFU] the following morning on a Virgin Train to Manchester.

Jones was due to join the former United manager Sir Alex Ferguson in the stands for the Premier League clash, but found himself on the end of abusive behaviour from a number of people on the crowded train, with the England head coach travelling in standard class on the 0915 out of Edinburgh Waverley. He was also verbally abused before boarding the train, with the incident revealed by the BBC.

“I’m a human being,” Jones said. ”I don’t consider myself any different from anyone else, so for me to travel on public transport I thought was OK. But I’ll make sure I won’t in future. It’s as simple as that. I can’t because it was shown on Sunday what happens when I do. That’s the world we live in. I was massively surprised. It wasn’t comfortable.”

Jones was asked whether the abuse was physical or verbal. “A bit of both,” he replied. “It’s part of the challenge. As an Australian coaching England, there were always going to be challenges and that’s just one of them.”

Jones was also asked for a number of selfie photographs from more polite individuals who had recognised him, but the incident is the latest in a line of unsavoury clashes that has surrounded the Scotland vs England fixture.

During the match, Jones was sat with his rest of his backroom staff in the coaches’ box – located next to the press box – which opens up to the lower stand that housed predominantly Scottish supporters. Certain individuals used the opportunity to taunt him whenever Scotland scored, and the Australian made a swift exit once the final whistle had gone.

Eddie Jones attended the Manchester United vs Chelsea match alongside Sir AlexFerguson (AFP)

Before the game, a pre-match clash in the tunnel between England’s Owen Farrell, Scotland’s Ryan Wilson and a number of other players led to a Six Nations investigation being launched, although the championship organisers confirmed on Wednesday that they will take no further action as there was no evidence of violent conduct.

“It had been reported that some of the players had been involved in a ‘melee’ or ‘scuffle’ in or near the tunnel after the pre-match warm-up,” a Six Nations statement read, having contacted both the RFU and Scottish Rugby Union [SRU] for an explanation of what happened.

“Six Nations Rugby gathered material from the RFU and SRU, as well as from the BBC and match officials. It also considered footage of the incident. It concluded that there was some evidence of pushing and shoving in the tunnel at the relevant time but no clear evidence of violent conduct or similar against any individual player.

“Accordingly, Six Nations Rugby will be writing to the SRU and RFU to remind them and their respective players of their obligations to uphold the reputation of the tournament at all times, but no further disciplinary action will be taken. Six Nations Rugby will also remind all unions of their’s and their players’ obligations.”

Jones held a team meeting on Tuesday work out what went wrong against Scotland (Getty)

Wilson was also cleared of eye gouging England’s Nathan Hughes, with the citing commission deciding that while he had made contact with the eye area his opposite number with two of his fingers during the off-the-ball scuffle, a pre-existing injury that meant both of the fingers were “bent or hooked” meant that the contact was accidental and did not merit a red card, meaning Wilson is free to play in the remainder of the championship for the Scots.

Having experienced only his second defeat since taking the England job, Jones and his team have been “working round the clock” to identify what went wrong against Scotland, with the reigning champions’ hopes of retaining the title for a record third outright time now out of their hands.

“We’ve done an exhaustive investigation into finding out what wasn’t right and there are some things that we’ve found we could’ve done a bit better,” Jones said. “There are a couple areas of the game that got exposed again that we need to work on and we’re coming up with solutions to those.

“We got caught at the breakdown area against a side that double jackles so we need to change a few things technically and the mindset of the players.

Jones believes England were beaten by Scotland at the breakdown (Getty)

“Then our space in defence where we were too tight at various stages and we need to react better to the way teams defend. We’ve been caught like that before against Australia and these things are hard to fix but we’re determined to fix them, we’re determined to put in a good performance against France.”

A victory against France may not be enough to keep the Six Nations championship alive heading into the final round, as if Ireland secure a bonus-point victory over Scotland a week on Saturday, England will need to do the same in Paris just to ensure they maintain a mathematical chance of catching Joe Schmidt’s side on the final weekend.

But Jones will not allow himself to look at the St Patrick’s Day clash with Ireland yet as he focuses on righting the wrongs of last weekend’s loss, although that process – he hopes – is already underway.

“We’ve been coming up with solutions to those over the last couple of days. We had a really good meeting yesterday [Tuesday],” he said. “Learning to fix it on the hop is the next step. It’s very easy to talk about leadership and how to change things, but it’s harder to do.

Jones claimed that the weekend defeat will be one that England learn from (Getty)

“After 20 minutes it would have been ideal if we’d have reacted quicker, but we didn’t and it took us until half-time. But that’s the progression of the team and unless you have these sort of lessons you don’t learn from them and we’ve learnt a lot. It’s a harsh lesson and a lesson we don’t want to have again but the likelihood is we could well have it.

“It took New Zealand eight years to learn how to fix things on the field. We’re trying to do it in four, so everything’s a bit more difficult for us. The only way to accelerate the process is not to sleep. That’s the only way. It’s not easy. We’re working round the clock to fix it. And we’ll get there but we’re going to have these sorts of situations.”