France have seen their Grand Slam hopes go up in smoke at Twickenham as England escaped with a 26-25 win at the death with a last minute try.
After demolishing Wales 43-0 last week at Stade de France with a record winning margin, France lacked the killer instinct against England, bombing a number of tries with poor handling.
The issues began as early as the 5th minute when outside centre Pierre-Louis Barassi broke down the left touchline with speedster Louis Bielle-Biarrey looming inside. The inside pass hit the back shoulder and England’s Marcus Smith recovered the loose ball.
“To me, the story in that game is France had 10 opportunities to score tries, and they didn’t take them,” former Ireland winger Andrew Trimble told Virgin Media Sport.
“And we saw same thing happened to Ireland at Twickenham last year. Ireland were off their game, and England managed to kind of get that game across the line with the last minute drop called Mark Smith, so they can do that if you’re off your game.
“France were just nowhere near the French side that we’ve seen.”
A play that summed up France’s night was a long counter-attack in the 20th minute breaking out from their own try line.
Fullback Thomas Ramos had Toulouse teammate and superstar Antoine Dupont lined up for the last pass. The pass forced Dupont to reach and he spilled it, a rare mistake from the game’s best player with a free passage to the line 15 metres out.
Damian Penaud had a cold drop from a set piece play moments later with an overlapping begging just 10 metres from the line.
Former Scotland coach and Australian TV pundit Matt Williams described the night as ‘incredible’ as France let England off the hook.
“It was incredible. Just, literally, they’ve done all the hard work. Everything’s right. Try lines in front of you, all you have got to do is catch the ball,” Williams said.
“Three times, all they had to do was catch the ball. And they dropped the pass.”
Heading the sheds at 7-all, France had an opportunity early to grab ascendency in the second half when Bialle-Biarrey produced a one-on-one strip.
“The one where Bielle-Biarrey stripped Smith, Bielle-Biarrey takes off, the fastest player in rugby. To be fair to the cover defense from England, they put him under pressure.
“All that Peato Mauvaka has to do is catch the ball and score a try and he can’t catch it. Time and time again, and that kept saying to England, you’ve got a chance, you’ve got a chance.
“And then England started to believe if France had, you know ‘what if’, France should have had that game out of sight by 10 minutes into the second half.
“Just as Ireland did last week. But giving England credit, they hung in there. They scored some really good tries in the last minute. Great belief. Great over the ball again, getting the penalties, getting themselves back into the game, but that’s what will happen if you don’t put a team away.
“If they had’ve put it away and said ‘you’ve got no chance’, it would have been a different game, but it wasn’t.
“And England deserved to be back in that game, but France will be sitting in that change room now, and Galthie will be sitting there, and they’ll just go, how did that happen? How did we do that? We dominated them everywhere except the scoreboard. ”
