England put themselves back in the mix for the Six Nations title when they beat Scotland 25-13 yesterday to join Ireland and Wales on six points and set up a mouth-watering finale next week but they may come to rue a host of missed tryscoring chances.

After Wales had beaten Ireland in Cardiff earlier, England knew a big win against a team they had not lost to at home for 32 years would put them in pole position on points difference but they made hard work of it having somehow trailed 13-10 at half-time despite largely dominating.

However, second-half tries by George Ford and Jack Nowell, added to Jonathan Joseph’s score after five minutes, did just enough to secure a narrow victory but with precious little for the Twickenham crowd to get excited about.

England, with a points difference of plus 37, complete their campaign at home to France in the final match of next week’s “Super Saturday” finale.

By then, they will know what they need to achieve in terms of a points victory to take the title after Wales (plus 12) have played Italy in Rome and Ireland (plus 33) have faced Scotland in Edinburgh.

Wales “ran themselves into the ground” to hold off Ireland and stay in contention, coach Warren Gatland said after a 23-16 victory at the Millennium Stadium.

The visitors, chasing the game after conceding an early 12 points, threw everything at Wales but their grand slam hopes were extinguished by a dogged red line of defence.

Joe Schmidt’s Ireland enjoyed two-thirds of possession, made more than twice the amount of metres than their opponents and comfortably won more rucks.

But Wales stood up to the second-half onslaught, flinging bodies around with abandon and celebrating every lineout stolen or blow of referee Wayne Barnes’s whistle in their favour with fist pumps and pats on exhausted backs.

Today: 16.00 Italy vs France.

Standings: England (3-0-1) 6; Ireland (3-0-1) 6; Wales (3-0-1) 6; France (1-0-2) 2; Italy (1-0-2) 2; Scotland (0-0-4) 0.