Eddie Jones insisted he had no regrets over the decision to replace Marcus Smith with George Ford at Murrayfield as England’s Guinness Six Nations campaign was undermined by a fresh injury blow.

Flanker Lewis Ludlam, one of the shining lights on a bleak afternoon against Scotland, sustained rib cartilage damage in the 20-17 round one defeat and will definitely miss Sunday’s clash with Italy.

To compound matters, it appears unlikely that Courtney Lawes will recover from concussion in time for the trip to Rome, but veteran lock Joe Launchbury has been called-up following his lengthy lay-off with a knee problem.

Much of the fallout from Saturday’s opener has focused on Jones’ call to make an influential change at fly-half where Smith was withdrawn for Ford in the 63rd minute.

England were leading 17-10 at the time and Smith was fresh from scoring a dynamic try and rifling over a penalty, but they unravelled in a final quarter of harmful mismanagement to allow Scotland to retain the Calcutta Cup.

Jones has been heavily criticised since, but the head coach is satisfied it was the right call at the time.

“I’m the best coach in the world with hindsight. I’ve done a few TV commentaries and I was the smartest coach in the world,” Jones said.

“But I made a decision on game day and I don’t have any regrets. I’m looking forward to Italy now.”

For the third successive year England are having to rebuild their Six Nations after slipping up on the opening weekend, but at least on this occasion they were in control until their all-too-familiar implosion.

“We’re disappointed with the result against Scotland, particularly given the way we played in the first 60 minutes of the game,” Jones said.

“We probably left 15 points out there, at least from our calculation. If we were sharper with our execution and a bit tidier around the breakdown, we would have been able to convert those opportunities into points. That’s an easy thing to fix.

“We are attacking in a different way, or trying to attack in a different way. We had a little bit of a lack of cohesion in some areas. We will make sure we tidy those up.

“But we’ve drawn a line in the sand for Italy and our aim is to make sure we light up Rome with a really good, energetic and purposeful performance to build on what we did against Scotland.

“We know that we have to tidy up a few areas of our game that we didn’t get right against Scotland. Like any young team, it’s not a linear progression.

“We’d love it to be linear but you have your ups and downs and we had a down against Scotland. Now we’ve got to make sure we get an up against Italy on Sunday.”

England must field an adjusted back row in the absence of Ludlam and will potentially make a change to their second row following the return of Launchbury.

Launchbury has completed two starts for Wasps since rupturing his anterior cruciate ligament in April and could be paired with Itoje at lock, bringing his 69 caps to a team full of rookies.

“Joe’s a good Test lock,” Jones said. “He’s an outstanding mauler and a guy who is tough around the one-pass play around the ruck.

“He brings a lot of experience and at the moment experience is not something we have a lot of.”

Lawes has not played since his outing for Northampton against Ulster on January 16 and the prospect of him making his comeback against Italy is receding.

“Outside at this stage. He’s progressing nicely. He’s started lifting and running, but with all these injuries the most important thing is the welfare of Courtney,” Jones said.

“Unless he’s able to train fully (on Wednesday), then the likelihood of him being fit for Italy is less than 50 per cent.”