England 34  v  France10

Spring Has Sprung and England Won

And for forty-five minutes we saw what us, the fans have hoped to see, free flowing rugby with passing, kicks being chased, an all out attack on a somewhat stunned French team.

On the first day where wandering around in a T-Shirt was not a sure-fire way to hypothermia, the crowd belted out the national anthem and seemed far more lively than the earlier Italy game. It would only take two minutes for the crowd to have something for the crowd to cheer about. Ellis (despite the commentators saying Care) sped the ball out of a ruck and Flutey picked up pace before offloading to Cueto to go in under the posts.

Englands Mark Cueto runs past Frances Morgan Parra (right) to score the first try All Pictures by Empics

Monye showed the difference early on in the type of game plan that was going to be played. The first difference was he actually got the ball rather than the ball being kicked as soon as it hit the ten jersey. The second is that he actually ran the ball and when he was eventually caught there was back up which led to a penalty to England's advantage.

France's first opportunity came on ten minutes but the kick was unsuccessful. When France looked dangerous the defence was firm forcing mistakes from the French team. My impression at this time, from my hastily scribbled notes, was that England had gone from a load of individuals to a team. Players passed or backed themselves and backed each other up. I think this can be showed where Borthwick suddenly appeared to be actually leading by example in the game (say it softly, he even passed!).

Flood had his kicking boots on and slotted a penalty and it was refreshing to see a variation on kicks and passing. From a line out the ball came swiftly down and out. The passing went here and there at such a high tempo it was hard to follow but Flutey coming in from a reverse angle broke through the shell shocked French line to score duly converted by Flood.

Englands Riki Flutey scores a try during the England v France RBS 6 Nations match at Twickenham,

The pack was immense, slowing French ball forcing them to panic and littering their game with errors. Whenever a French player had the ball there seemed to be two white shirts waiting to make the tackle. There unfortunately is one counter to this and at points Twickenham tried to take the appearance of Wimbledon. In England's defence they were still doing more running rugby Flutey and Easter making nice breaks along with Armitage and Cueto.

With two minutes until half-time the England wave crashed again and again against the French try line and just through pace of attack and quick recycled ball Armitage went over.

 Delon Armitage kisses the badge on his shirt after scoring the third England try during the RBS 6 Nations match at Twickenham, London. 

Within less than a minute of the restart England had managed to turnover and break up field despite almost getting there on a couple of times it came to an Easter, Borthwick combination to send over Worsely for the score.

 Englands Joe Worsley scores their fourth try

Unfortunately Flood was injured in the lead up and came off, Armitage missed with the conversion and at half time England were29-0 up.

England came out for the second half to continue from the first. Armitage showed superb speed to evade several tackles before offloading to Flutey to score; Goode was unable to add the extras. That was that as far as England scores went. France had woken up.

The French team countered attack with attack. Both teams hammered away and tried to change the run of play with several substitutions for both teams but France rumbling around the try line eventually managed to force their way over for their first score. Penalties against both teams made it a bit scrappy, in fact the French score felt like England ten years ago whereas England's scores had a Gallic feel. England seemed to be reverting to type though giving silly penalties and not creating space for the speedsters or just making little mistakes.

Another French attack from a penalty saw the ball go through the hands with Malzieu strolling over in the corner. Another missed conversion led to the end of the scoring. England still the more dominant attacking side made slight errors and France defended well but the pure speed of that first forty five meant that England looked to close out the win. All in all an excellent performance by an England team and Croft a thoroughly deserved man of the match. This Six Nations at Twickenham has seen a win ugly but yesterday saw a far more satisfying win beautiful.

England: D Armitage; M Cueto, M Tindall, R Flutey, U Monye (rep: M Tait, 72); T Flood (rep: A Goode, 41), H Ellis (rep: D Care, 55); A Sheridan (rep: J White, 65), L Mears (rep: D Hartley, 57), P Vickery (rep: White, 43-57), S Borthwick (captain), S Shaw (rep: J Haskell, 57), T Croft, J Worsley (rep: N Kennedy, 68), N Easter.

France: M Médard; J Malzieu, M Bastareaud (rep: F Fritz, 48), Y Jauzion, C Heymans; F Trinh-Duc (rep: D Traille, 48), M Parra (rep: S Tillous-Borde, 59); L Faure (rep: T Domingo, 51), D Szarzewski (rep: B Kayser, 59), S Marconnet (rep: Faure, 72), L Nallet (captain), J Thion (rep: J Bonnaire, 48), T Dusautoir, S Chabal, I Harinordoquy (rep: L Picamoles, 68). 

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