Eddie Jones has told his England players that they must "redeem" themselves against Wales next weekend following a flat performance in their Six Nations opener.
The Red Rose overcame France 19-16 at Twickenham on Saturday evening to get their title defence off to a winning start and record their 15th victory on the spin.
Jones made it clear immediately after the game that he was not entirely happy with the display, however, and he has now gone one step further by claiming that the disjointed showing left him feeling as though his side had lost.
"I didn't sleep on Saturday night, I know that, so the dog was unhappy and the wife was unhappy," The Guardian quotes him as saying. "I'm just disappointed by the way I coached the team and I didn't sleep because I was thinking about what we could have done better.
"I feel like we lost. We wanted to go out there and set the benchmark for the Six Nations and we didn't and we're disappointed by that. We want to go out this week and redeem ourselves. And that's a good feeling. I've found that after those sorts of nights you're at your most lucid, your thinking is pretty clear, as funny as it seems. You wake up in the morning and you've got the solutions there.
"When I look back, we made some mistakes. The main mistake we made was that we added some things to our preparation which is important, but sometimes when you add things it takes away focus. Those things we have added are going to be beneficial for us further down the track.
"We're experiencing some short-term pain because we're probably not doing enough of the important things - we're doing things which are setting things in stone for the future. But this week we will be a bit more focused - we will pare things down."
England have won just 21 of their 61 matches against Wales in Cardiff, but they prevailed 21-16 on the last occasion they met at the Principality Stadium.
Daniel Lewis
