The ceremony was bittersweet, the trophy heavy, England’s smiles thin and unconvincing. They won the title with a defeat, their first in a year, five months and 16 days. Their last loss was to Australia at Twickenham in October 2015. So it was an unfamiliar feeling and, judging by they way they looked and the words they spoke, the players did not find it had improved too much in the time since they last experienced it. For a chunk of the team it was a new sensation. Maro Itoje, Ben Te’o, Elliot Daly, Kyle Sinckler and Nathan Hughes have won 44 caps between them but this was still the first time they had lost an international match.
One had to wonder how Eddie Jones was going to spin it. It turned out he was a lot more gracious in defeat than he had been when his team beat Italy at Twickenham a few weeks back. “You have these days,” Jones said. “Ireland played superbly. They were too good for us.”
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