Scotland played their part in an entertaining match at Twickenham with an impressive try for debutant winger Sean Maitland and a fine late score from full-back Stuart Hogg.

England proved too strong however and sealed the 38-18 victory thanks to tries from Chris Ashton, Billy Twelvetrees, Geoff Parling and Danny Care.

But while Scotland showed promise in attack, Johnson believes that they made life too easy for England, insisting his side must improve at the contact area.

“The reality is that we didn’t defend brilliantly, we lost field position all too often and it was far too easy for England,” he said.

“I think the scoreline was a fair reflection of what happened because they had the yards, although we gave them too many yards. These were things that were controllable, and we let ourselves down.

“At the end of the day tries and crossing the line comes at the back of what you do in the contact area.

“Forget the tries we scored, the reality is that we have to get this part right as it is an essential building block and we have to keep going back to that and then we can have an attractive team.

“We are not going to chase rainbows. We need to get that part of our game right and if we do that we will have a good team.

“We knew it was going to be tough before we started, it was a key game for us.

“There were some real positives, there was good endeavour, but we spent too long playing at the wrong end of the field.”

England impressed with some of their running rugby in their first match since their historic victory over New Zealand in December.

But Johnson believes their victory over Scotland should not be used as a yardstick of their progress.

“If you allow England that much time to play then they are as good as anyone,” he added.

“If they are put under pressure, we will see – that’s the challenge for their opponents. When they are not allowed to dominate, then we will get a better gauge of where they are.”