For the past month every utterance emanating from the England camp has been about winning rugby matches in different styles yet Saturday's lacklustre concession of the Calcutta Cup suggests they might need to think about winning in different places too.
Certainly Lawrence Dallaglio thinks so after watching his side flail around Murrayfield for more than an hour before joining the battle when his side had all but had their fire doused by a frenetic Scottish performance.
Their cornucopia of shortcomings resulted in an 18-12 reverse and England's seventh defeat in eight away matches - since March 2004 - with their only success coming a fortnight ago in Rome.
While Twickenham has once again become something of a fortress England have begun to resemble France, not for their flair but for their inability to travel.
Dallaglio knows that if the World Cup is to be retained that has to change. "We have got to look at the way we are playing and make sure that when we are away from home we move the scoreboard along," the former captain said. "We didn't do that against Scotland. We had the chances to score and didn't take them."
Indeed they didn't. Despite dominating possession England created only a couple of clear cut try-scoring chances, one dropped calamitously by Ben Cohen in the closing stages of the first half, and could produce only five penalty attempts for kicker Charlie Hodgson - four of which he accepted.
But it was the Scots who kept the score rolling with four goals by Chris Paterson and a timely drop goal by Dan Parks to seal their first victory against England for six years.
Aware of criticism that would cascade down on to England, Dallaglio made something of a call to arms, saying: "We have to stick together. We are a fairly open and honest bunch of lads and we will decide what went wrong and work on putting it right."
Head coach Andy Robinson echoed the No 8's call for reflection and refused to panic about his side's inconsistent form, saying: "I take this game as a one off. It was a game we managed poorly in terms of working with the referee. We allowed Scotland to win a game of rugby because of their outstanding defence. They played on the edge and were more street-wise. We are all upset and disappointed for the English public."
