key events
try! France 10 – 3 England (Nolan Le Garec)
19 minutes What an incredible endeavor! France stole England’s lineout around half-time and Le Garrec immediately carried the ball 30m into midfield as the defenders moved the ball quickly through their hands. Fiku burst through the gap and passed to Barre, who carried and executed a delayed pop pass to Legarec, who tracked him all the way from his first pass, grabbing Got the ball and ran over.
Ramos transforms.
Absolutely gory glory.
punish! France 3 – 3 England (Thomas Ramos)
17 minutes Smith made a run on the kick return but when he hit the blue wall he was a bit isolated and that’s exactly what Marchand needed to grab the ball inside the England half and win the penalty.
Ramos fancied the shot from the tee, and as he watched it sail by, he had good reason.
15 minutes. Both sides felt they had the advantage and kicked out of the box for a period of time. This eventually went to England for a few stages before Ford once again soared.
punish! France 0 – 3 England (George Ford)
11 minutes Ford teed off from the tee and England survived France’s opening storm to find themselves three points ahead!
10 minutes. Finally, a chance for England to gain possession of the ball arose through a scrum, and it took several minutes to complete. This resulted in Attonio being penalized for going down.
7 minutes. England’s possession still eluded them as Genge missed a penalty at France’s lineout.The home team moved from the next throw-in, Penault this He almost passed the ball to Mefo in midfield, but the ball went to the ground instead.
George Furbank strained his calf and had to be replaced by Marcus Smith.
5 minutes. France had already earned a turnover from England and needed to fight for the ball in midfield. It was a clean back-heel but this time the white blitz worked, leaving the French midfielder caught in a handling error.
It’s been a fast start for the home side and if England can get through it without taking too much damage, they’ll soon have some possession to test the opposition’s defense (hopefully!)
2 minutes. England restarted and took it back to France, who decided that on this night they were going to go wide early and had given Fiku the ball through his legs as an option. The move allowed them to get away from England’s blitz through DePortre’s run towards the left touchline before England could beat him off the pitch.
kick off!
On the second try (don’t ask) Tomas Ramos kicked the ball deep to get us started.
As we get closer to kick-off, La Marseillaise is absolutely booming in Lyon.
God, that was a glorious racket.
The stadium was plunged into darkness as a laser light show danced across the turf while the crowd prepared for the team’s arrival – which wouldn’t be long considering the team was now in the tunnel.
Email from Brendan Large
“As an England fan, the results don’t really matter that much (assuming we avoid a heavy defeat like last year) but we need to show intention like we have in the last few games. In my opinion, England’s performance in the last two games Outstanding. In Scotland we conceded more balls than we caught and Van der Merwe seemed to catch every ball we conceded, whereas in Ireland our balls got stuck and they beat them to pieces. This top French team can still overcome another positive performance, but one that will exceed our expectations a few weeks ago.”
Let me tell you what a great ending the game was, a match even half as good as the one the U2o team put on last night.If you haven’t seen it yet, I suggest you watch it
Pre-match reading
Ireland have secured the title, so what do you want to see from this game?Send all your thoughts and predictions my way via email or post @Blood and Mud
team
Fabien Galthie was so pleased with his performance last week that he was named 23 as well.
England were forced to make one substitution, with breakthrough winger Emmanuel Faye-Waboso injured and replaced by Elliot Daly. Manu Tuilagi returns to the bench.
France Léo Barre; Damian Penault, Gael Ficoux, Nicolas de Portel, Louis Biller-Biare; Thomas Ramos, Nolan Le Gar Lake; Cyril Bayet, Julien Marchand, Unni Attonio, Thibaut Flamand, Emmanuel Mefo, François Cross, Charles Olivine, Gregory Aldritt.
alternatives: Pito Movaca, Sebastien Taufefenua, Georges-Henri Colombe, Roman Taufefenua, Alexander Luma, Paul Budhunter, Maxime Lucou, approx. Ram Mofana
England George Firbank; Tommy Freeman, Henry Slade, Ollie Lawrence, Elliot Daly; George Ford, Alex Mitchell; Ellis Genge, Jamie George, St Cole, Maro Itoje, George Martin, Ollie Cheatham, Sam Underhill, Ben Earl.
alternatives:Theodan, Joe Marler, Will Stewart, Ethan Lutz, Alex Dombrandt, Danny Kyle, Marcus Smith, Manu Tuilagi
Preface
“If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich?” is the question many will be asking following England’s burst of positivity following Ireland’s win at Twickenham. There’s no doubt there’s no better way to show your brilliance than with a result in France, not to mention a year in which four points in the W column were expected of Steve Borthwick’s side. Not high.
The performance of the past two games has left Borthwick and England fans more optimistic than at any time in the past few years, given the results of the last game. But over the past two decades, there have been more fake red roses than Alexander Fleming’s petri dishes. Today we’ll look at whether this particular experiment deserves further development.
Speaking of experiments, France seems to have decided that the best way to deal with losing two key pivots in Dupont and Ntamac is to keep throwing new backs into Tombora and see what flies out. This came into play against Wales last week, mainly because the team’s forwards had about 1.45 million Newtons more power than their opponents. They are unlikely to have such a big advantage against a rejuvenated England side today, but they will still appreciate a new, increasingly speedy backline, causing some problems for the visitors’ defensive system that is still maturing. .
