'Across the board we managed it badly' - Jones

Huw Jones says a failure of game management was at the heart of Scotland’s dismal Six Nations defeat to Italy.

The Scots built a commanding 22-10 lead inside half an hour, but an abject second half display allowed the Azzurri to storm back to win 31-29.

The defeat in Rome all but extinguished the Scots’ title hopes.

“We are gutted with our performance,” said Jones.

“Across the board we managed it badly. The leadership and the processes and the communication was good but we’ve all got to look at ourselves and the actions we took.

“We didn’t execute our plan well enough and Italy played well. We hate losing. It’s really tough to take, hugely disappointing.

“We spoke during the week before the game about having our best performance, having an 80-minute performance, but we were really poor in the second half. We let the game slip away from us.”

Despite another Six Nations title challenge fizzling out before the final weekend, Jones says the team remain firmly behind head coach Gregor Townsend and hope to end the campaign with a better showing against Ireland in Dublin.

“We wanted to get a win and then go to Dublin next week full of confidence and try to do something but this obviously takes the wind out of the sails a bit.

“We’ve got to react, we’ve got to react quickly and prepare for another game.

“We’ll go through a range of emotions but we’ve got to review it objectively and then turn our attention to Ireland.”