Ever-changing England still have Six Nations fate in their own hands

It used to be painting the Forth Bridge which was considered the ultimate in never-ending jobs. These days it is the England rugby team, a work in progress for so long that people have almost forgotten what the original timescale was meant to be. There are some weekends, and this was another of them, when it also feels as if Tracey Emin’s unmade bed might be the secret artistic inspiration for Eddie Jones’s still-ongoing project.

Nothing is ever finished with Jones, regardless of the evidence available. “It’s got no ceiling,” he insisted on Saturday night on the subject of England’s supposedly limitless attacking potential. Maybe so but it takes a coach of supreme self-belief to talk in such terms when his side has just been outscored at home by three tries to one by a Welsh team who, by their own admission, really started to play only after half-time.

Luckily for Jones there was not an additional five minutes available, with a depleted Wales unexpectedly looking the more dangerous side. It means that England, on paper at least, are still in the title hunt with two rounds to play and a chance to confound all those who regard France and Ireland as comfortably the two strongest sides in the championship.

In that respect an opportunity clearly remains for England to tear off the dust sheets and masking tape and reveal themselves in a different guise against the Irish at Twickenham on Saturday week. Do that and everything would hinge on a final weekend showdown against Les Bleus in the City of Light, an 80-minute blank canvas crying out to be filled with something momentous and daring.

But are England really about to confound the restless critics? For all the elusive promise of their diminutive half-backs, Marcus Smith and