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Key events
PENALTY! France 16 – 3 England (Thomas Ramos)
35 mins. It’s another England penalty and even though it’s on the halfway line Ramos calls for the tee and inevitable three points follow.
This is already a long way back for England.
33 mins. England are not helping themselves at all so far. Not only are they dealing with a rampant France attack, they are also dropping too many balls and giving away multiple penalties – the latest of which is for Genge pointlessly not wrapping his arms in a tackle.
PENALTY! France 13 – 3 England (Thomas Ramos)
31 mins. Ramos slots a kick from wide left after England are offside following a huge run from Ollivon.
28 mins. A sigh of relief from England after Ben Earl touches a Barre clearing kick in flight which puts everyone onside, including Penaud who the ball is dropping to but the winger fumbles it forward! That would’ve been a very tricky defensive situation for England to deal with.
26 mins. Alldritt drives from the base of the scrum to set up a platform in the middle of the field. Ramos tries to find Penaud with a cross-kick but it’s overcooked and goes touch-in-goal.
24 mins. Ollie Lawrence has a big run, but again the ruck drills are poor and France whip possession back on their own 22. Penaud has a run from the base and he steps free and runs 30 metres before putting a teasing chip into the 22 for the rapid Bialle-Biarrey to chase. Smith just gets there first, but all he can do is carry it over the line and England will have to defend a 5m scrum.
22 mins. England don’t let this magnificence dull their effort and are immediately back in the France 22 via a clever Mitchell kick that Barre mishandles into touch. They visitors win the lineout, but they can’t hold it in midfield and a fly-hack from Depoortere sends them way back.
TRY! France 10 – 3 England (Nolann Le Garrec)
19 mins. What an unbelievable try this is! France nick an England lineout around halfway, which Le Garrec immediately fizzes 30m into midfield for the backs move it sharply through hands. Fickou storms through a gap and feeds Barre who carries and executes a delayed pop pass to Le Garrec who has tracked all the way from his first pass to clasp the ball and race over.
Ramos converts.
Absolutely bloody glorious.
PENALTY! France 3 – 3 England (Thomas Ramos)
17 mins. Smith has a run as part of a kick return, but when he hits the blue wall he’s a little isolated and that’s all Marchand needs to clamp on the ball and win the penalty just inside the English half.
Ramos fancies it from the tee, and with good reason as he watches it sail through.
15 mins. A period of box kicking from both sides as they feel for an advantage. This eventually settles into a few England phases before Ford hoofs it high again.
PENALTY! France 0 – 3 England (George Ford)
11 mins. Ford slots the kick from the tee and England have survived the opening French tempest to find themselves three points up!
10 mins. Finally, a chance of some time with the ball for England via a scrum presents itself and takes a good few minutes to complete. And it results in a penalty against Atonio for collapsing.
7 mins. That possession for England still isn’t materialising as Genge has given away a penalty in a France lineout. The home side get moving from the next throw in and Penaud is this close to getting an offload away to Meafou in midfield, but it dribbles to ground.
George Furbank has pulled his calf, and has to be replaced with Marcus Smith.
5 mins. France have already won a turnover from England and they have a scrum to whip the ball away from on halfway. It’s a clean heel, but the white blitz does its job this time and rushes the French midfield into a handling error.
This is a rapid start from the home side, if England can ride this out without being too bruised they will have some possession to test they opposition defence soon (hopefully!)
2 mins. England recycle the restart and boot it back to France who decide it’s the kind of night whereby they will go wide early, and have already had Fickou chucking the ball through his legs as an option. This move gets them outside the English blitz via a Depoortere run up the left touchline before England scramble and force him out.
KICK OFF!
At the second attempt (don’t ask), Thomas Ramos punts the ball deep to get us underway.
La Marseillaise absolutely booms out in Lyon as we move ever closer to kick-off.
Good lord, that was a glorious racket.
The stadium is plunged into darkness as a lazer light show dances across the turf while the crowd readies for the arrival of the teams – which won’t be long given the teams are now in the tunnel.
An email from Brendan Large
“As an England fan the result is not so important (well assuming we avoid a shellacking like last year) but we need to show intent like the last couple of games. In my opinion England have been superior in the last two games. In Scotland we dropped more ball than we caught and Van Der Merwe seemed to catch all those we dropped whereas in Ireland it stuck and they ran them ragged. Another positive display could still be overcome by this top level France team, but a positive display would be more than we expected all those weeks ago.”
Tell you what would be a fantastic end to the tournament, a game even half as good as the fabulous fayre served up by the U2o teams last night. If you haven’t seen it, then I suggest to take a look
Pre match reading
The Championship has been stitched up by Ireland, so what do you want to see from this game? Send all thoughts and predictions my way on an email or a post @bloodandmud
Teams
Fabien Galthie was happy enough with last week and so has named the same 23.
England are forced into one change, with breakout winger Immanuel Feyi-Waboso injured and replaced by Elliot Daly. Manu Tuilagi returns to a place on the bench.
FRANCE Léo Barré; Damian Penaud, Gael Fickou, Nicolas Depoortère, Louis Bielle-Biarrey; Thomas Ramos, Nolann Le Garrec; Cyril Baille, Julian Marchand, Uini Atonio, Thibaud Flament, Emmanuel Meafou, François Cros, Charles Ollivon, Gregory Alldritt.
Replacements: Peato Mauvaka, Sébastien Taofifénua, Georges-Henri Colombe, Romain Taofifénua, Alexandre Roumat, Paul Boudehent, Maxime Lucu, Yoram Moefana
ENGLAND George Furbank; Tommy Freeman, Henry Slade, Ollie Lawrence, Elliot Daly; George Ford, Alex Mitchell; Ellis Genge, Jamie George, San Cole, Maro Itoje, George Martin, Ollie Chessum, Sam Underhill, Ben Earl.
Replacements:Theo Dan, Joe Marler, Will Stuart, Ethan Roots, Alex Dombrandt, Danny Care, Marcus Smith, Manu Tuilagi
Preamble
“If you’re so clever then why are you not rich?” is a question many will be asking England after the explosion of positivity following the victory of Ireland at Twickenham. There’s certainly no better way to show your bling than a result in France, moreso when it takes the W column to 4 in a year when not a great deal was expected of Steve Borthwick’s team.
Alloyed to the result last time out, the nature of the play in the last two matches is what has Borthwick and England fans more upbeat than at any time in the previous few years. But the Red Rose has had more false blooms than Alexander Fleming’s petri dish in the past two decades; today will see if this particular experiment is worth further development.
Speaking of experiments, France appear to have decided that the best way to deal with the loss of their two key fulcrums in Dupont and Ntamack is to keep chucking new backs into tombola to see what flies out. It worked to a point last week v Wales, mainly due to the forwards in the squad having roughly 1.45m newtons more force than the opposition. They are unlikely to have as much of a pushover ride against a re-energised England pack today, but they will still fancy the new and increasingly rapid backline to cause the still maturing defensive system of the visitors some problems.
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