Six Nations: Failure to take chances against Scotland costly, says Youngs

The Leicester Tigers No 9 was in brilliant form scoring two tries and creating another as they won 55-35 at Twickenham.

Of course, it was not enough to take the title as they fell just six points short of the target they required to remove champions Ireland from the top.

“The team are gutted,” Youngs admitted.

“It was a pretty steep target – to win by 26 – but what a challenge.

“We said before the game, “What a way it would be to win it”.

“We probably weren’t predicted to do it after that, but we went after it.

“We started really well but then they took their tries well but we’ve really got to be better than that.

“Then we got our way back into the game again – one step forward, one step back – but right up until the end I thought we could still do it.

“I had full belief.

“We worked really hard and I don’t think the Six Nations title was lost today.

“For us – it was actually lost last week, when we missed too many chances.

“We should have been way ahead on the points difference, going into this game.”

On a remarkable final day of staggered fixtures, Wales were just 14-13 ahead at half-time in Rome yet defeated Italy 61-20 to initially go top.

Then Ireland won 40-10 in Edinburgh to move into pole position meaning England knew they had to go out and win by 26 points against the French.

The tactics were clear – bold and attacking – and Youngs added: “But France turned up didn’t they?

“I don’t know what happened to Italy or Scotland. It’s typical isn’t it?

“I’ll have to speak to my Leicester colleagues about that on Monday to see what was going on.

“But look, we watched it and knew their lead over us was 26. But that didn’t affect our approach too much – we knew we were going to be chasing it and we did that. But it was shame those other teams weren’t a bit more resilient.”