Two minutes to play, France are trailing by one, and Thomas Ramos is standing over the ball on the halfway line, shaping to take the kick that will provide the final twist in this topsy-turvy championship. England had only just scored themselves to retake the lead in a game they seemed to have already lost and won and lost all over again. They did it with a fine try from a lineout inside the France 22. Danny Care to Manu Tuilagi, snap, Care to Maro Itoje, crackle, and Care to Tommy Freeman, pop. He slid over the tryline in the right corner and for all of three minutes, they were about to win a famous victory. But Ramos’s kick yanked it back again.
It was that sort of match. It swung wildly in the night-time breeze, one way then the other. England were 13 points down in one moment, and eight points up again in the very next. It was sloppy and exuberant and exhausted, like a game played in the hallways on the last day of term. Ireland had already won the title when they beat Scotland in Dublin earlier in the afternoon. But, shattered as everyone on the pitch was at the end of the championship, they played merry havoc here in Lyon, even though there was nothing much to win from doing it, thinking, perhaps, that it will be months till they have another chance to go again.
So here were France ripping the length of the pitch with one of the great freewheeling tries after François Cros nicked a lineout off George Martin. Cros slapped the ball down like a bear on the bank snaffling himself a salmon and, one, two, three passes later Gaël Fickou was slipping through the yawning gap Henry Slade had left in the English line and haring off downfield. He sent the ball on again to Léo Barré who threw not one, but two, dummies towards Louis Bielle‑Biarrey outside him then sent the ball the other way back to Nolann Le Garrec. Never mind a tackle, England barely managed a touch between them.
And then here’s Ollie Lawrence, off the back of another lineout, slicing through a gap in the France midfield to pull one score back. Lawrence got England’s second as well, right after half-time. In those 10 minutes, England played the same fizzing game they had against Ireland at Twickenham the week previous. They moved the ball at speed and shot through the gaps while the France defence were still scrambling to close them. Ben Earl was almost unstoppable, and cut up the midfield like a hot knife through a block of cold Beurre d’Isigny. Three minutes later he set up another for Marcus Smith.
Brilliant as it all was, the most conspicuous thing about their play in this stretch was in what you didn’t see. For years, England have been a team who have celebrated every last little victory on the field, they treat turnovers like decisive tries, penalties like the points that won the tournament. This time, though, England didn’t even stop to congratulate Lawrence or Smith. Instead, the players turned on their heels and walked back the way they came, ready to start over again. It was a sign of serious intent, and more evidence that Steve Borthwick’s sombre demeanour is starting to rub off on them.
If only they could have played that way for all 80 minutes, or even an hour of them. But they didn’t have it in them, this week. Their lineout, which had been a finely calibrated machine against the Irish, stopped and stuttered, their maul went nowhere at all, and there were, again, a few too many handling errors when they were on the ball, and a few too many holes in their defensive line when one or another of them came rushing up like a bull after the toreador. It was a hell of a risk to use a blitz against a team that uses a half gap the way this France side do. Men who move like Fickou don’t need a second invitation to make you look stupid.
For all that, there’s no doubt England are in much better shape now than they were back at the start of the tournament. For the first time in a long time, it feels like they are on the upslope again. They have the makings of a serious pack in Earl, Itoje, Martin and Ollie Chessum (the Irish sportswriter Con Houlihan used to say that every team should have a redhead, and England have a good one in him). In Lawrence, Smith, Freeman and Immanuel Feyi‑Waboso, who missed this game with a concussion, they have skill, and speed, and strength in their back line, too. They will be back, and better, this time next year.
Some of this team will be missing by then, Manu Tuilagi, for one, and Danny Care, most likely. It was good to watch the two of them, who have been there so often for England over the last decade, run through their last few plays together.
And it was good, too, to think, while watching Lawrence and Alex Mitchell work, that England are finally ready to get by without the two of them.
