Poor England hammered by France in Paris

A first-choice England pack endured a torrid evening at the hands of Les Bleus just seven days after being out-muscled, but not out-scored, in the 19-14 victory over the same foes at Twickenham.

The World Cup in England and Wales starts next month.

Scotland begin their World Cup campaign against Japan in Gloucester on September 23rd.

The good work was undone in a flash, however, as Michalak darted forward and cleverly sent Huget through a large gap, with Robshaw arriving too late to make the covering tackle.

England’s second-half improvement coincided with the arrival of their replacements bench, most notably Danny Cipriani.

“We’ll look long and hard at ourselves”.

France then took their foot off the gas as the clock ticked down and centre Jonathan Joseph made them pay with a try in the corner which Ford converted for 25-20.

In that time England gave away silly penalties which would have anxious Lancaster as his forwards were battered around every inch of the Stade de France pitch.

Scott Spedding landed France’s first three points from inside his own half after Burrell conceded a penalty, and another error, this time from Dan Cole, allowed Frederic Michalak to fire his first of five penalties. Credit to everyone, I thought we came out second half, played well and you saw it was all or nothing. I do not know what happened in the first half, whether it was down to rust or nerves, but it was not good enough.

For 10 minutes England played the kind of rugby that could see them challenge for the World Cup, but for 70 minutes prior to that they played in a manner that would see them fail to get out of the group.

“We are two weeks away from playing Ireland and four from Fiji“, Lancaster added, referring to the final warm-up and the opening match of the tournament. The England forwards appeared to bring their side back into the encounter, but it was certainly too late, even if Joseph’s try led to a lengthy passage of English possession in the French half as the clock ran out.

A chip from scrum-half Sebastien Tillous-Borde was expertly dealt with by Mike Brown, who plucked the ball from the air beneath his own posts knowing only a ideal catch would be enough to foil Huget.