France survive in Cardiff cauldron but offer England reasons for hope

Another step negotiated by New France, as they progress to their own World Cup next year – and, before that, a date with their bitterest enemy, everyone’s bitterest enemy in rugby’s small world, England in Paris next weekend.

Another successful step there, and a grand slam will be theirs, a first since 2010, a first title since 2010, a dozen years, long and barren. That said, this notion that France are in a different class to les autres suffered a few cracks.

Wales, after a torrid start, the like of which France are increasingly adept at inflicting, were comfortably the equal of their vaunted visitors. They are beginning to reassemble a more familiar pack, Taulupe Faletau a second game into his return and looking all the more magnificent for it, but their front five, in particular, remains raw. Well, they stood up handsomely against the monstrous French pack.

With only small adjustments to the dread reality of What Actually Happened, Wales might have won – and no one could possibly have argued with it. But the hated Friday night slot, the cauldron of Cardiff – albeit shorn of nearly a fifth of its usual number – there were more than enough ingredients to render this latest step exactly the kind any temperamental France side might have slipped on in the past. That France, ultimately, did not is to their credit, as of course is the little burst of panache that proved the difference.

Against Ireland, against Scotland and now against Wales, France have distinguished themselves by simply outplaying their opponents in that special period of the game when the lungs are full, the passions high, the excuses low – those first 10 minutes. The game’s only try was scored in the ninth minute, and a beauty it was. In it lay the