England suffer historic humiliation after France’s Twickenham tour de force

Talk about a guillotine falling with brutal finality. England have endured some chastening days over the years but nothing on the scale of this record thumping by a France side who had not won a Six Nations game at Twickenham since 2004. If the home side were nowhere near good enough on the day, Les Bleus were quite outstanding for the majority of a one-sided contest.

By the end even England’s worst ever day at Twickenham, the 42-6 thrashing by South Africa in 2008, was receding in the rearview mirror. Steve Borthwick’s squad had dared to hope this might be the day they glimpsed a brighter future coming over the horizon. Instead it proved to be the headlights of a speeding France TGV, smashing aside everything in its path.

The visitors, clearly fuelled by a desire to right a few historic wrongs, scored seven tries in all, with Thibaud Flament, Charles Ollivon and Damian Penaud bagging two apiece. In many ways this was an even more eye-catching Gallic triumph than their famous 51-0 demolition of Wales at Wembley in 1998; this autumn’s Rugby World Cup in France cannot now come swiftly enough for them.

But whither England? Frankly, where to start? On a damp, rainy evening their ambitions of playing expansive rugby dissolved horribly as it became abundantly clear they lacked anything remotely like the power and panache of their opponents. It would be harsh to blame Marcus Smith when there were so many other glaring deficiencies around him but England’s supposed new attacking dawn never remotely materialised.

France, on the other hand, started as if it was Paris in the springtime rather than late winter in south-west London, going 10 points up inside the first seven minutes. If England were lucky when Cyril Baille failed to