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19/8/07
France 22 England 9
This was a terrible night for England. Their
calamitous form away from home now reads one
solitary victory in 15 attempts, in itself a
statistic to cause adults to weep given that
all England's World Cup fixtures are far
from their beloved Twickenham.
But it was worse, much worse, than that.
England lost their captain Phil Vickery with
concussion, Martin Corry limped off towards
the end with a twisted knee and there were
disturbing signs that England's one and only
game plan, which is based on forward power,
is nowhere near powerful enough.
France simply outmuscled them and in the
process many of England coach Brian Ashton's
key individuals had poor games. Tom Rees, on
his own, was unable to match the brute force
of French flankers Yannick Nyanga and
Thierry Dusautoir in the collisions over the
ball. It was tough on the lad. More often
than not he was outnumbered at the breakdown
but it was ridiculous to think that he could
turn into a sensation overnight. He can't.
Mark Cueto, another man learning his trade
too close to a World Cup, did not look
comfortable at all in the full-back slot.
There was one horrendous example when he
failed to gather an easy kick ahead and then
fly-hacked at the ball in disgust but the
rest of his play was also sub-standard. Not
once did he seem capable of spotting and
running good lines from deep.
It was a similar story whenever England
tried to get their attacking game going.
Jonny Wilkinson lacked fluency, appearing
desperately manufactured, and Andy Farrell
and Dan Hipkiss did nothing to suggest that
they are the answer to England's midfield
prayers after an opening quarter where they
looked tight and composed. To be fair, they
were on the back foot most of the time and
no one likes to play rugby with that
disadvantage. But on the few occasions when
England did build up a head of steam they
were unable to turn it into anything
special.
Up front it was no walk in the park either
because England enjoyed none of the
dominance they contrived at Twickenham
principally because France, as they had
promised, addressed their deficiencies at
scrum and line-out.
France weren't as sharp elsewhere on the
pitch but they had enough control to play
the rugby in the areas they wanted. The half
time stats gave France nearly 60 per cent
advantage in terms of territory and
possession which, given the size of their
back line patrolled menacingly by the huge
Damien Traille and Yannick Jauzion, meant
England had to conjure ways other than
straight running to get past them and that
they could not do.
France now go into the World Cup as one of
the favourites. There was a wonderful
vibrancy to everything that happened in
Marseille yesterday, the venue where England
hope to contest a quarter-final against
either Australia or Wales. The stadium was a
riot of noise and colour and it seemed to
puff up the French side who will now swagger
a little more confidently after this result.
Time running out for England
In fact, the only worrying aspect for France
from a World Cup point of view was that once
again top flight Test rugby resembled a war
zone at times, with crumpled players
dragging themselves off the floor to hurtle
into each other again and again.
The first half ended with Vickery being
carted off on a stretcher after he had
clashed with Traille. From my vantage point
it appeared that the England captain was
lining up Traille for a big hit only to get
it wrong and suffer a whiplash injury to his
neck as Simon Shaw, his Wasps team-mate,
also got involved. Shaw was adjudged to have
gone high on Traille. Whatever the precise
sequence of events, Shaw received a yellow
card and Vickery crashed to the ground and
lay motionless on the turf as the England
medical team summoned the stretcher. It's
the latest in a long list of injuries to
befall Vickery and with less than three
weeks to the start of the World Cup it was
the worst news for England.
But there was more misfortune of a different
kind. Wilkinson, England's get-out-of-jail
card in so many games, had an exceedingly
ordinary first period which did not improve
as the game continued. Part of that was down
to the French defence which, like England's,
was intensely robust. But the other factor
was that Wilkinson played with nothing like
his habitual accuracy. One penalty out of
hand went directly into touch to hand the
advantage back to France; there was little
length to his touch-finders; he missed a
fairly ordinary pot at goal and his
re-starts were too long, allowing Clement
Poitrenaud and Fabien Pelous, among others,
to regroup.
PAUL ACKFORD -
Sunday Telegraph | Sunday, 19 August 2007
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