Eddie Jones: England side are UNDERDOGS for Calcutta Cup in Scotland

England coach Eddie Jones has turned up the pressure on Scotland by branding them ‘red-hot favourites’ for Saturday’s Calcutta Cup.

Jones’s side travelled to Edinburgh on Thursday without five Lions stars and a new captain in flanker Tom Curry. Scotland have lost just one of the sides’ last four meetings and Jones questioned whether the hosts would be able to handle expectations. 

‘I’ve never been involved in a game at Murrayfield where Scotland are such red-hot favourites,’ said Jones. ‘That’s different for them, carrying that expectation of success.

‘There will be 67,000 fans and they will be thinking about all the fans watching the game on the BBC. They have to carry that burden. For us, it’s normal. We’re expected to win every game. So that is something they’re going to have to handle.

‘They’re well coached by Gregor Townsend, they’ve got some outstanding players, but that expectation of winning is a different pressure to handle and I’m not sure how they handle that.’

Jones has been forced to name a young squad for the opening Test, with the likes of Marcus Smith, Nick Isiekwe and Freddie Steward making their Six Nations debuts.

The new-look squad are braced for a hostile reception at Murrayfield, but Jones insists his team will ‘go after’ Scotland from the very first play.

‘What we know is that we’re well prepared and we’re coming after them,’ said Jones. ‘We’ve got a young team but a very good team that is improving all the time. The problems we’ve had have just created opportunities for the team to gel a bit more, and we’ll be on the front foot against Scotland.

‘You could see from the number of players who Gregor selected for the Lions tour (Townsend was a Lions coach in South Africa) that Scotland have got a lot