England’s Joe Marler says squad’s reaction helps deal with lineout error

Joe Marler has revealed “in-house bitching” is becoming a thing of the past within the England squad after holding his hands up for how he choked during his costly lineout clanger in the defeat by Scotland. Marler admitted he froze at the crucial moment at Murrayfield but said England have collectively held an inquest into their disastrous finish to the Calcutta Cup clash.

They now turn their attention to Italy on Sunday with the Leicester lock/flanker Ollie Chessum in line for a debut, having been retained as part of Eddie Jones’s 27-man squad. As expected, Courtney Lawes has again been ruled out because of a head injury sustained playing for Northampton in mid-January and, with Lewis Ludlam also injured, the 21-year-old Chessum – who Jones believes can become “a younger version of Courtney” – is set for a place in the match-day squad.

Marler’s fluffed lineout – the second of his Test career and first in nearly 10 years – gave Scotland a scrum deep in England’s 22 from which they won the decisive penalty. The loosehead prop was the nominated thrower with no hooker on the field following Luke Cowan-Dickie’s yellow card but Marler admitted he released the ball to Alex Dombrandt too late, meaning it did not travel the required five metres, handing the impetus to Scotland.

The 31-year-old said he has been practising his lineout throwing again in training this week, under the instruction of the forwards coach and former hooker Richard Cockerill, but added that, as a result of Jones’s New England project, there had been little back-biting during the postmortem into Saturday’s 20-17 defeat.

“With this group it is probably the tightest group I have been a part of with a lot of the youngsters, who are very good friends off the