The Wales coach, Warren Gatland, will spend the next 24 hours considering whether to drop one of his key players, Alun Wyn Jones, for the moment of madness that cost the second-row 10 minutes in the Twickenham sin bin and his side a match-losing 17 points.

A furious Gatland said Jones's trip on the England hooker, Dylan Hartley, six minutes before the end of the first half was the biggest single factor behind Wales' defeat and that he would not rule out dropping the Lions second-row from the team to face Scotland in Cardiff on Saturday.

"The most disappointing factor of the game was that we conceded 17 points when we were down to 14 men," said Gatland. "We spoke all week about keeping our discipline and not giving anything stupid away and that act cost us the game. We will front up and be honest with him. What he did was absolutely stupid. It is huge and it is something we will look at before picking the team for Scotland, especially as we had highlighted the need not to give anything soft away."

Gatland faced a similar dilemma two years ago when the scrum-half, Mike Phillips, was sent to the sin bin for an act of indiscipline at the end of the opening half against Ireland in Dublin. Wales were trailing 6-3 at the time and were awarded a penalty under Ireland's posts when Phillips kneed the prop, Marcus Horan, in the ribs.

Gatland considered dropping Phillips for the final match, against France, which Wales needed to win to clinch the grand slam, but contented himself with a dressing down. "If the result had been different, Mike could have lost his place," said Gatland at the time. "I have told him not to get involved in anything like that again and he has to learn from it. We have tried to improve the side in a number of areas and discipline is one of them."

The Wales players today rallied behind Jones, who was not made available for interview. "We have all been in Alun Wyn's position where we have made mistakes," said the Wales captain, Ryan Jones, "but we had 70 other minutes to score more than 17 points and then we would not be having this conversation. It is a test of how he responds. His is the first name on the team-sheet most weeks and he has a long and illustrious career ahead of him. All of us have done something stupid on the field and it is about not doing it twice.

"I thought we matched England physically, stopping them get over the gainline. I don't think we were beaten by a better team but a side that played better in patches. The momentum changed in the second half and we could have grabbed it at the end, but you cannot afford to give a side like England such a big start. We have learned some harsh lessons, but with four games to play we are not out of the title race."

James Hook, one of Wales' try scorers, said the players were not pointing fingers at Alun Wyn Jones. "The try England scored just before half-time killed us a bit, but we cannot put all the blame on Alun Wyn," he said. "He is a quality player who is hurting but the bottom line is that we created enough chances to win. I thought we would go on to win when I scored my try, but looking back we should not have waited until we conceded two tries before starting to play."