England vs France

One of his vice-skippers, prop Ellis Genge, will lead the team instead. It's a bold decision from Borthwick but one he hopes will pay off handsomely as England ...

It is a bit of a mystery at the moment. I thought we would get a measure of where we are at, there is a big gap between us and the top teams in the world. We are way off where we want to be. “It was a very special game for us and we tried to make it count. “We played the way we wanted to play... "Certainly you have to give immense credit to France and they are clearly a world-class team. “That is one of our worst performances and we were punished numerous times. Thibaud Flament crossed twice, so did Charles Ollivon and the excellent Thomas Ramos claimed a try to boot. “It was great to score. It shows we’re on the right path. It’s our biggest performance in a while.” Thibaut Flament, Charles Ollivon and Damian Penaud all notched braces for France, who got a very early score from the sublime Thomas Ramos as they won by a staggering 43 points, 53-10.

Marcus Smith starts at fly half as England host France at Twickenham in Le Crunch.

Boos at the full time whistle of an England home fixture for the second time in a matter of months. Antoine Dupont, Gael Fickou, Thomas Ramos and Gregory Alldritt were all outstanding for the visitors, to name just four from a complete dismantling of an inferior side. “France are brilliant, there’s a reason they are number two in the world. You’d say Borthwick might be inclined to go back to his appointed captain in Dublin, but almost anything is surely now on the table. “We were well beaten by 43 points; when you play like that against a team so well coached and with ability like that, that’s going to happen. They played well, we played poorly - we have to learn from it and be better. England were shambolic, as their opponents dominated every facet of the game and scored seemingly at will. [France](https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/france-rugby) aren’t even the best team in this [Six Nations](https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/six-nations). Any credit Borthwick had built up as an ex-England captain, with an impressive coaching CV early in his career and as the ideal, straightforward man to follow the drama of the unpopular Eddie Jones era has likely been extinguished. “I think that we are incredibly disappointed with the performance. The main bearing on the game was the contact area. Never before, in 152 years of playing international rugby, had an England team suffered a home defeat this heavy.

England will be hoping to put pressure on Ireland at the top of the Six Nations standings as they take on France in Le Crunch at Twickenham.

To be able to have Owen [Farrell] to come on and finish the game' But England undo their hard work conceding a penalty for handling the ball on the floor. But play is called back by the referee as England have the advantage and kick to the corner with the resulting penalty. England recover the ball and clear their lines. France have certainly got off on the front foot, with England making several mistakes. According to Opta, their 24-point lead is the largest any side has had at half time over England in the Six Nations. The home side have not quite mounted a fluid attack yet. I thought it was a well selected team [England], I thought it was the best selected team he could have put out. But just the physicality and the athleticism of the French team was amazing. It looks as though the French openside Ollivon may have scored with the TMO checking now! Fickou's excellent vision see's Alex Dombrant mismatched against Penaud on the wing, and while Dombrant gets the tap on the France 14, he can't quite bring him down. I think I sugar-coat it, probably one of the worst performances we’ve had.

England player ratings live from Twickenham: This was savage, a brutal record beating as England were blown away by France.

[Henry Arundell](https://www.rugbypass.com/players/henry-arundell/) – 3.5 Quickly upped the tempo and gave the assist for Steward. An awful day ended with Penaud leaving him for dead for the first of his late tries. Was the other player involved in not preventing the offload on halfway that got France up and running with their opening score. Similar to Sinckler, he badly fell foul of referee O’Keeffe in the opening 15 minutes and was always on the back foot from there. Looked to be improving during February, but this display was a dire collapse as he was outfought by the opposition grunt. First-time captain endured a horrible experience in which he contributed to his team’s slow start with a deflating 12th-minute knock-on. That gave the French a soft mark to clear from their 22. His 60-minute appearance went from bad to worse after that. No one could quibble that he didn’t deserve his place, but he was blown away here and hooked on 46 for Farrell. That tick has now been well and truly inked, the swashbuckling Les Bleus’ winning at English Rugby HQ for the first time since 2005. All that palaver was marked absent in a filthy rout where their back row essentially never got off the bus.

Following a 53-10 victory for France over England in their Six Nations fixture, here's our five takeaways from the game at Twickenham on Saturday.

Rugby is now a game of both physicality and brutality and without that sheer power, Test matches are particularly hard to win. It was England’s third worse defeat in their rugby history, their worst ever defeat at home and their biggest defeat to France. His task now is to learn the harsh lessons dished out by France, to try and find the power players to change the shape of the English backline, and above all, get some structure back into their performances. His personal stats might not show his influence on the match but every time England tried to fire it was he who barrelled them back, making four bone shattering dominant hits and acting as a fourth back-row forward around the breakdown. From the moment the outstanding Charles Ollivon created the first try with an exquisite offload to the last play of their attack that saw Damian Penaud scoot over for his brace, they were compelling and brilliant. It was a masterclass in controlled running rugby, showing every facet of France’s all round game and completely eviscerating Steve Borthwick’s rebuild project of his England side.

Defeat for England. #ENGvFRA | #GuinnessSixNations · 1,189 · 3,004 · England Rugby · @EnglandRugby. ·. 1h. 75' | ENG 10-53 FRA Damian Penaud is over in the ...

England were obliterated by France in a seven-try mauling at Twickenham. A record defeat at their home stadium saw Steve Borthwick's side outfought, ...

It's the first time in Farrell's entire career that he's been benched for a Six Nations game, and what effect will his absence have on an England attack which has looked disjointed at times in 2023? Successive offloads out of contact from Ollivon and Flament release Dumortier into open space, and he finds Ramos to his outside to put the French full-back over in the corner! Danty leads the visitors in this regard, but is pinged for not rolling away in the ruck and concedes a penalty. George is trapped in the ruck and Sinckler's presence means he can't get out, and the resultant penalty is knocked over from right in front by Ramos, taking his personal points tally to 15 in this game. Ollivon peels off from openside to collect the number eight's inside pass, and crashes his way through Smith and Steward to score in the corner! England generate quick ball inside the French 22 and finds Steward hitting one hell of a line, and the gigantic full-back shoves Ramos away to slide over the whitewash! England don't ground the ball on their own line and a pile-on of a ruck ensues. The referee and TMO decide that England kept the ball in the field of play, and that Smith had indeed released it. It's a rout in every sense of the word, although Ramos does finally miss a conversion to keep the score at 53 to 10. France's domination of the game saw them play out 80 minutes with barely a fault, and ahead of the 2023 Rugby World Cup — on home soil, of course — Les Bleus' odds to win the tournament could well sky-rocket. France's performances in their first three Six Nations games had been a far cry from their complete dominance of the 2022 tournament, with Italy and Scotland considered unlucky not to beat them, and Ireland defeating them convincingly. Damian Penaud collected a cross-field kick to skip clear of the chasing defenders, and he was over again three minutes later to round off the scoring.

70'. Penalty to England and Mitchell goes quickly! He tries to fling a pass wide over all the French defenders but Dumortier leaps high and intercepts.