ENGLAND v FRANCE:IT IS necessary to go right back to the inaugural tournament in 1987 to find the last occasion England lost to Northern Hemisphere opposition in a World Cup knockout match. It is suddenly a relevant statistic now that Martin Johnson's team cannot face a Tri-Nations side before the final, should they reach it. If history were to repeat itself, England will not complain in the slightest.
Apart from a third-place play-off game in 1995, when France and Will Carling’s squad went through the motions in Pretoria, the only European side to have beaten them in a sudden-death shoot-out are Wales, who triumphed 16-3 in Brisbane 24 years ago. Ever since, the English have proved stronger than their European rivals when push has come to shove.
This partly explains why Johnson’s players sound quietly optimistic about beating France in Saturday’s quarter-final at Eden Park. Les Bleus will always be unpredictable opposition, as New Zealand found to their cost four years ago, but England remain unbeaten in four matches while France have just lost to Tonga. “In World Cup rugby no team’s ever lost in the group stage and gone on to win it, so we are in the right place at the moment,” stressed the England fullback Ben Foden.
Nor has it escaped Foden’s notice that he and his team-mates are still winning despite not producing their best rugby: “The good thing about England is that we can win games by playing ugly. If you ran the clock back a bit we’d have been on the wrong side of the result in games we’ve won recently. That shows we are capable of winning by using different weapons.
“Obviously as a back-three player I want to see the ball going wide as often as possible, but in international rugby everything gets tighter, the margin for error is smaller, defences get better and you have to break down teams in different ways.
“I think we are at our best when we play a wide game, but sometimes we haven’t had the ball as much as we’d like. It’s a bit frustrating but if we keep winning 14-10 and manage to win the World Cup doing that, then I’ll be as happy as Larry.”
The Northampton fullback accepts, even so, that England will have to reach out and grasp their destiny rather than waiting for it to happen. “We know if we replicate the performances we’ve had so far there is only so far we can go in the World Cup.
“To believe we are going to go on and win a World Cup, we really need to step up a level and take it to the French.
“When we played in Ireland in the Six Nations we sat back and waited to see what was happening around us. By the time we reacted the game was over. Last week (in the defeat to Scotland), instead of grabbing the game by the scruff of the neck, we did much the same. We have to make sure we go out and play rugby straight from the whistle, instead of sitting back and waiting to see what other teams are throwing at us.
“People think France are in a fragile state but if we give them early points and a lifeline they’ll definitely take it and they are good enough to make it another arm-wrestle of a game.”
Minds have also been concentrated by the scare against Scotland, who led 12-3 with 24 minutes remaining. “There was a moment of realism when we thought we could be going home if we didn’t pull our fingers out,” admitted Foden. “We were very disappointed with the first-half performance but in the second half, and especially towards the end, we started to play some good rugby and got through our phases. It was when we looked at our most dangerous and took our chance.”
Increasingly, there is a belief that tight games breed resilience and that England can cope in adversity.
“It shows good character that we can win those games,” said Foden. “Only a few teams have been tested that way in this tournament. That’s what knockout rugby is all about. It’s always going to be won on a knife edge.”
And if it does come down to defence, England feel the necessary padlocks are in place. “We’ve only conceded one try in the whole competition so far, which is the lowest from any team,” confirmed Foden. “I don’t think Scotland really looked like scoring against us apart from when they chipped in behind a few times and we scrambled. We take massive confidence from that.”
Guardian Service
Ellis and Yachvili go to bat for under-pressure Lievremont
QUITE WHAT it will do for French World Cup preparations is unclear, but their coaches – minus Marc Lievremont, alas – and some of the management spent yesterday learning to play a straight bat to a day of difficult deliveries, writes Mike Averis.
Under the direction of their English defence coach, Dave Ellis, and a Kiwi liaison man, Emile Ntamack (backs) and Didier Retiere (forwards) plus some of the medical staff under the team doctor Jean-Philippe Hager spent their afternoon getting a taste of cricket in the nets of an Auckland cricket club.
Ellis had hoped to have a bowl, but instead had to make do with a morning session batting away the short stuff when it came – questions about France’s form and particularly the game against Tonga, which he admitted was comfortably the worst French performance in his 12 years with the team.
Mind you, he also attacked suggestions the team were close to rebellion over Lievremont’s policy of naming and shaming players such as Imanol Harinordoquy, Dimitri Yachvili and the outhalf Francois Trinh-Duc, who will have to start yet another game on the bench against England on Saturday.
“We’re very together,” said Ellis, dismissing reports that players had absented themselves from a bonding session organised by Lievremont after the Tonga defeat: “After the match and on Sunday we were all together and most of the time it has been very good,” said the coach, supported by Yachvili, who got more than a little irritated at repeated suggestions of bad feeling. “Were you there?” the scrumhalf asked one insistent questioner before Ellis gave his explanation of Lievremont’s style of doing things: “It’s the way Marc is, he wears his heart on his sleeve.”
Guardian Service
