Saracens full back Noah Cato scored two tries – taking his tally to five in four championship games this season – with the Wasps pair of Hugo Ellis and Joe Simpson, Worcester flanker Matt Cox and Harlequins wing Seb Stegmann also touching down.

Centre Alex Goode (Saracens) kicked two conversions and a penalty – as well as picking up the man of the match award for his midfield playmaking – while fly half Rob Miller (Newcastle) added two more conversions on his debut.

But what impressed Mapletoft most was the way the team responded after seeing Saracens lock Ben Thomas sent off for allegedly butting an opponent immediately before the break.

Scotland’s Lewis Calder scored immediately after the interval but instead of digging in for the duration England produced a devastating spell of attacking to score three tries in quick succession through Simpson, Cox and Cato.

“We’re away from home and we’ve scored 40 points even though we were down to 14 men for more than 40 minutes, so we have to be delighted,” said Mapletoft.

“Scotland scored at the start of the half and looked like they were about to score again, but we were relentless in the way we stepped things up to score 19 points in a five-minute period. Those are the spells that put teams away.

“We’re a positive unit and at the start of the week we said that we wanted to raise the bar, not get distracted by the possibility of a Grand Slam game to come against Ireland.

“We’ve been ticking off each task, we were able to handle the distraction of Ben’s sending off and the way we dealt with the second half was outstanding.

“Each side has offered us a different challenge and this was about the high expectations and the pressure.”

England take on Ireland at Gloucester next week having seen off Wales 28-15, Italy 22-13 and France 24-6 before controlling the game at a freezing Falkirk Stadium.

And the potential for England’s development beyond next week’s Six Nations finale makes the former Gloucester and England fly half optimistic about future success.

Half-a-dozen more England Under 20 players were unavailable for this game as they were required for Premiership action and several more – like Harlequins centre Jordan Turner-Hall – missed out through injury.

That will make England fans increasingly hopeful of more success against Ireland at Kingsholm – and when this summer’s IRB Junior World Championship takes place in South Wales.

“As a unit we’ve done nothing that build all season and having worked with the group as Under-19s last year we’ve had the benefit of adding some exciting players from last year’s Under-18 side,” said Mapletoft.

“And the most exciting thing for us was that there are other players who’ve been involved with this squad  – Gregor Gillanders (Leicester), Calum Clarke (Leeds), Miles Benjamin (Worcester), Alex Tait (Newcastle), Dan Norton and Charlie Sharples (both Gloucester) – who are all involved in Premiership games this weekend.”