England 34 France 10: BENEATH A shimmering London sun it felt like a mirage: England playing like the white tornadoes of old, running in tries by the bucket load against demoralised opponents with not a yellow card in sight.
Even in Martin Johnson’s wildest dreams he cannot have envisaged his team breaking their recent Six Nations drought in such thunderous fashion, so dominant they attracted standing ovations at half-time and the final whistle. France’s supposed Napoleons were not so much humbled as blown apart.
A fortnight is truly an age in rugby. Could this possibly be the same French side who tackled Wales to a standstill in Paris? In the bright light of an English Sunday afternoon they were outed as impostors, hard men in their own backyard who perform like poodles when it comes to “Le Crunch”. It is no disrespect to the home side to say France were a complacent shambles in the first 40 minutes as England raced to a 29-0 lead.
Heaven knows what this has done to the transfer value of certain England players in the French market. Tom Croft, deservedly named man of the match, was outstanding, Riki Flutey and Mark Cueto were almost as sharp and the maligned Steve Borthwick enjoyed by far his best game for his country against a disjointed French lineout.
Rugby, as Johnson keeps saying, is essentially a simple game. Make fewer mistakes than your opponents, combine that with precision and passion in attack and anything is possible.
“It’s nice to be in a changing room when we’ve won and the guys have played well,” said Johnson, the memories of the 42-6 and 32-6 autumn thumpings against South Africa and New Zealand respectively still too fresh for public euphoria. “We always knew we were a better side than we looked in the autumn.”
If it has all come a little late for England to win this year’s Six Nations, this scoreline has bought Johnson’s men precious time. No longer will discipline be top of the agenda, despite a penalty count of 13, and their attacking a matter of conjecture. They now sit atop the championship’s try-scoring charts with 13 and at one point seemed about to eclipse their 37-0 record victory against France in 1911. They looked fresher and fitter than their opponents, too, which suggests the rest periods permitted by the deal between the clubs and the Rugby Football Union are bearing fruit.
The fact France perked up a bit late in the game merely underlined the poverty of their effort for the first 50 minutes. England were on their way after 69 seconds, Flutey spotting a mismatch in midfield against a leaden-footed Sebastien Chabal and putting Cueto away from 25 metres for a finger-wagging, showboating finish.
There was worse to follow for the France defence coach, Dave Ellis, when England unfurled the same first-phase lineout move which almost made Mathew Tait a hero in Dublin. This time it was Cueto who steamed into space after slick build-up play between Nick Easter and Toby Flood, the Sale wing returning Flutey’s earlier favour to put the home side 17-0 up after 23 minutes.
So much for the sun on French backs bringing out their best. Apart from Imanol Harinordoquy and one bullocking run from Mathieu Bastareaud they were a study in anonymity, lacking direction at fullback and urgency in all areas.
It was sad to see the great Yannick Jauzion reduced to the ranks and extraordinary to witness the ease with which Flutey stripped the ball away from Chabal’s grasp to set up another wonderful English position from which Delon Armitage ultimately scored. The manner in which Armitage grasped the red rose on his jersey indicated a man keen to demonstrate his distant selection for France under-16s had not diluted his sense of pride. Within three minutes the home supporters had more to celebrate, another turnover and a kick ahead scattering the French cover yet again.
Toby Flood almost scored, slipping awkwardly on to a shoulder as he did so, but Easter and Borthwick had time and space in midfield to shift the ball to an exultant Joe Worsley. Was Simon Shaw offside at the original ruck? It scarcely mattered to England on a day when every little thing they did was magically rewarded.
Whatever Marc Lievremont said in the dressingroom it had no effect. The long-striding Armitage left Bastareaud and Chabal clutching at air in a storming charge down the left and Flutey was on his shoulder to roll out of Cedric Heymans’ tackle.
While France did score consolation tries through Dimitri Szarzewski and Julien Malzieu, they were the last convulsions of a fatally wounded animal. For sheer shock value this felt not unlike England’s 5-1 away win over Germany in 2001 under Sven-Goran Eriksson. That did not, in the end, preface a new golden era but did refresh the faith of a jaundiced public. For Johnson, the Twickenham garden is suddenly a far rosier place.
ENGLAND: D Armitage; M Cueto, M Tindall, R Flutey, U Monye; T Flood, H Ellis; A Sheridan, L Mears, P Vickery, S Borthwick (capt), S Shaw, T Croft, J Worsley , N Easter. Replacements: A Goode for Flood (half-time), D Care for Ellis (55 mins), D Hartley for Mears (57 mins), J Haskell for Shaw (57 mins), J White for Sheridan (66 mins), N Kennedy for Worsley (68 mins), M Tait for Monye (72 mins).
FRANCE: M Medard; J Malzieu, M Bastareaud, Y Jauzion, C Heymans; F Trinh-Duc, M Parra; L Faure, D Szarzewski, S Marconnet, L Nallet (capt), J Thion, T Dusautoir), S Chabal, I Harinordoquy. Replacements: F Fritz for Bastareaud, J Bonnaire for Thion (48 mins), T Domingo for Faure (50 mins), F Tillous-Borde for Parra, B Kayser for Szarzewski (59 mins), L Picamoles for Harinordoquy (68 mins).
Referee: S Dickinson(Australia).
Guardian Service
