RFU expected to back Owen Farrell over tunnel bust-up with Ryan Wilson before England's defeat to Scotland

England's Owen Farrell, right, celebrates with teammate England's George Ford. Photo / AP

England are expected to tell the NatWest Six Nations authorities on Monday that Owen Farrell was not the instigator of the fracas that erupted in the tunnel before the Calcutta Cup on Saturday.

England crashed to a 25-13 defeat, damaging their bid to land a record third successive title and reigniting Scotland's hopes of winning the championship. Television footage of the pre-match incident appeared to show Farrell and Scotland No 8 Ryan Wilson involved in a scuffle before team-mates intervened as the squads returned to their changing rooms after the warm-up.

That incident was first reported by broadcasters and discussed at half-time of the match by television pundits and will have been regarded as embarrassing and unedifying by rugby's authorities given the profile of the match and the sport's strong focus on values.

The Rugby Football Union and their Scottish counterparts were on Sunday asked to provide an explanation for the incident by the tournament organisers.

The RFU declined to comment, while the SRU would only say: "Scotland are delighted to have won the 2018 Calcutta Cup at BT Murrayfield and the focus of the team now turns to the game versus Ireland in Dublin." Jones afterwards denied knowledge of what had taken place, as did players from both teams when asked for their version of events. Scotland captain John Barclay said he was in the lavatory at the time.

"I've been coaching a game. I've been pretty busy. Are you aware of it?" said Jones in his post-match press conference. "You can show it to me after the press conference, then we can have a chat about it.

"In all seriousness, I don't know about it. If there was, we shouldn't let that detract from a great Scotland victory."

Nigel Owens, the referee, was powerless to intervene but could have reported it to the citing commissioner and recommend that the player or players involved be investigated after the match.

"I didn't see it but, if anything, it fired up the boys even more," said England scrum-half Danny Care when asked about the incident. "This game was huge for us. We knew we had to start well and the disappointing thing was we didn't."

Martin Johnson, the former England captain and manager, quipped that the incident was "England's highlight so far" when asked during his role as a television pundit.

The distraction of a disciplinary hearing is unlikely to be welcomed by England as Jones attempts to resolve the reasons behind his side's defeat as an inspired Scotland claimed their first victory in the Calcutta Cup for 10 years and scored their first Murrayfield tries in the contest since 2004.

"We lacked intensity and we've got to find out why," said Jones, who said he took full responsibility for his side's display. "We got beaten at the breakdown and we've got to find out why. We lacked proper spacing in defence and we've got to find out why. So there's three big ones.

"We allowed the game to disappoint us at times and there are some good lessons for us. We are trying to develop a strong team but the occasion was too big for us today. Scotland were too good for us. That's the situation."

Jones took off No 8 Nathan Hughes, his captain Dylan Hartley and trusted full-back Mike Brown between the 55th and 58th minutes in a bid to seize back the momentum of the contest but indicated that he was unlikely to make wholesale changes for the match against France in Paris on Saturday week.

"It won't change anything," said Jones. "You can start to find shadows in the corners. Once you get into the situation we got into, it puts pressure on you and we probably didn't execute as well as we can do. But I'm not going to go down the track of saying everything is wrong because everything is not wrong. We were beaten at the breakdown, we didn't get our defence spacing right and our intensity wasn't good enough. We could play tomorrow and the breakdown could be significantly different, so let's not get too carried away with it. It wasn't good, but you could turn that around in 24 hours.

"I thought we were ready to play today but we weren't. Scotland contested the breakdown well and read the referee well. Full credit to them.

"We thought we would get an advantage in the maul and the scrum, and we didn't get that. Again, full credit to Scotland."

Forecasts of snow this week have forced Jones to alter his training plans. A 27-man squad will be named tonight with 19 players expected to travel to Oxford tomorrow for a training camp shortened from five to three days. The remaining eight players will train at regional camps before the full squad reconvenes at Pennyhill Park, Surrey, before the trip to Paris.