The dust has begun to settle on a chaotic day at Twickenham Stadium. England have endured their highest ever defeat at home, with France overwhelming victors in a 10-53 shut-out win.
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Here are five Things we Learned at England v France, including post match reactions from England’s Head Coach Steve Borthwick, Captain Ellis Genge and French maestro Antoine Dupont.
Historic Loss – England Receive Heaviest All Time Defeat at Twickenham
France have inflicted England their heaviest ever defeat at Twickenham, with a 43 point margin of victory. This is England’s third all-time highest defeat, in a truly difficult match for Steve Borthwick’s men.
The only two matches that are worse results for England, are a 76-0 loss to Australia in 1998, and a 58-10 defeat to South Africa in 2007. Borthwick spoke about where the match was lost against France. The England Head Coach highlighted the contact area and Antoine Dupont as definitive difference makers.
“When you play a game and lose the collision, as badly in defence, and giving the opposition opportunity quick ball, offloads, and you lose it in attack, where you not able to generate quick ball in terms of these turnovers at the breakdown. Especially in conditions like that, it’s hard to get a foot-hold in the game and that was exactly the case today.”
“Dupont playing off that quick ball, whilst we knew that was a threat, we weren’t able to stop it. Now, what we’re going to do is, we’ve got different threats next week, and the different threats that Ireland pose. We’ve got to make sure, that we don’t let the opposition to win momentum they way we allowed it today.”