Eddie Jones has revealed that England players phoned him to take personal responsibility for the team’s indiscipline.
England crashed out of Six Nations title contention with defeat in Wales, their second in three games in which they have conceded a whopping 42 penalties.
Jones has just five days to fix what has become a chronic problem before unbeaten France come to Twickenham.
“In any game of rugby, there are penalties you can’t avoid and there are penalties you can avoid,” he said.
“We worked out that of the 14 penalties in Wales, five were avoidable and we asked the players to reflect if they were those players and then come up with a plan of how they can avoid them in the future.
“I've had at least three or four players ring me during this week to talk about how they need to attend to their errors. That's the great honesty of this team.”
Jones would not name names but multiple offenders in Cardiff were Maro Itoje (five) and Mako Vunipola (two).
Asked for his theory as to why England have become serial offenders in the eyes of match officials, he said: “We are trying too hard. Players in the spur of the moment are trying too hard.
“That’s something that only an individual player can fix, that ability to be in the moment and do the right thing at that particular moment.”
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