England 26-25 France
TWICKENHAM STADIUM — This might just be the start of something. England shocked France to end a seven-match losing run against Tier 1 nations with a gritty victory, led by fly-half Fin Smith on his first international start.
Many of the RFU’s grand and often self-harming policies revolve around protecting the Premiership and England’s club game. But whatever it’s failings, England does rain. English rugby’s archetypal state is slightly damp, and in part it showed here.
Under a rainy miasma, everything glistened – not least the ball. France’s first half was defined by handling errors from their biggest names in the biggest moments. There was one each from Louis Bielle-Biarrey, Antoine Dupont and Damien Penaud, all with fresh west London air between them and glory. This was uncharacteristic and a tad unlucky, and could have had France three tries up within 25 minutes.
Of course, these mistakes were partially caused by France having quite so much of the ball. Through the first 15 minutes, England made 29 tackles to the visitors’ five, and entered the French 22 twice in the first half-an-hour.
The latter of these entries was extraordinarily brief, as George Martin bungled a theoretically simple line-out, an English trend throughout the match. Within a minute, Bielle-Biarrey was racing onto a Penaud chip and France took a lead they should have long possessed.
But for all the talk of England tiring late in halves, it was France who fell away after the half-hour mark. Having struggled to co-ordinate an attack to that point, the home side found a new gear and new confidence, controlling 71 per cent of possession in the 10 minutes after Bielle-Biarrey crossed.
This ended with a series of failed close-range attempts breaking to Ollie Lawrence, via a chaotic string of handling errors which somehow didn’t go forward. Lawrence palmed off Thomas Ramos to barrel round the posts and towards parity. Having led Ireland at half-time a week earlier, England were level on 40 minutes here.
And they had clearly learned something from defeat in Dublin. France, meanwhile, learned nothing from their handling travails – this time Peato Mauvaka, whose slip had almost kiboshed his side’s earlier try, cost them another after another Bielle-Biarrey break.
Instead, France needed two penalties to restore their lead, with Ramos making up for a poor early effort from 40 yards. But on the hour mark, England’s Northampton Saints connection came good. Fin Smith’s kick found Tommy Freeman, who outjumped two French players to cross.
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