England blitz France at Twickenham

England lifted the pressure on team manager Martin Johnson by running in five tries during a scintillating 34-10 victory over France at Twickenham on Sunday.

Riki Flutey set up Mark Cueto for the opening try with less than a minute on the clock, before the latter returned the favour just after the midway point of the first half.

England then put the game beyond Les Bleus with two quickfire tries just before the break, through Delon Armitage and Joe Worsley, which helped them into a stunning 29-0 half-time advantage.

Flutey then crossed for his second after the game just after the restart, finishing off a superb break by Armitage, who was magnificent throughout.

France finally got off the mark when Dimitri Szarzewski drove his way over the line and they managed another consolation score through Julien Malzieu soon after.

However, after seeing their RBS 6 Nations Championship hopes ended in such embarrassing fashion, there was little for France to take from the game.

For England, there were nothing but positives after a performance which yielded five tries and, perhaps more crucially, not a single yellow card.

They have, of course, have been improving under Johnson and the argument had been made that had it not been for their ill-discipline that they could have beaten both Wales and Ireland.

Even still, nobody could have foreseen what unfolded in the opening 40 minutes at Twickenham, certainly not in light of France’s quite brilliant victory over Wales in round three.

However, France just never got going, particularly defensively, and were utterly incapable of coping with England’s greater desire, intensity, organisation and – most interestingly of all – attacking flair.

The French were particularly shambolic in defence, though, and their rearguard was breached after just 66 seconds. Flutey, seeing that he had just two French forwards in front of him, Sebastien Chabal and Thierry Dusautoir, burst through a gap before putting Cueto clear to score in the right corner with a superbly-timed and superbly-executed pass.

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