Rugby’s Greatest Matches: England 55-35 France
Ben Youngs scores for England in their 2015 Six Nations match against France after just 92 seconds
Credit: Alastair Grant/AP
We live in an age of craziness - whether that is a South African billionaire calling his firstborn something that resembles a GCSE algebra question or our overlord Joe Wicks taking over our living rooms one burpee at a time.
It might be why we get drawn to the March clash between England and France at Twickenham in 2015.
It was a game which threw out all notions of defence, exposed both teams’ fallibility and, above all else, was just a lot of fun.
What preceded the game explains a lot of what happened on the pitch. Wales, Ireland and England all had a chance of winning the title on the final day of the championship.
Wales briefly took the lead with a 60-21 thrashing of Italy in Rome before Ireland swatted aside a poor Scotland team, who had lost to the Azzurri a few weeks prior, to put the Irish in the driver’s seat.
It left England with a daunting task. They had to win ‘Le Crunch’ by 26 clear points. Although this was not a vintage French team, who were midway through their decade of mediocrity, they had the mercurial talent to test Stuart Lancaster’s side.
A breathless first half
The game burst to life almost as soon as Nigel Owens blew his whistle. Jonathan Joseph, the breakout England star of the tournament, took hold of a loose ball and charged into the French 22.
Mike Brown linked well with George Ford who put Ben Youngs in for the first score before two minutes. Blimey.
Then comes one of the more bizarre tries you will see. This time Sébastien Tillous-Borde gathered a loose pass from Youngs and just sort of jogged in a 60-metre breakaway.
Not the quickest off the mark, Dan Cole nearly catches the chunky scrumhalf as he’s about as quick as a UK response to a global pandemic.
On 17 minutes Noa Nakaitaci goes in for his first try for Les Bleus but makes really hard work of it. He almost runs into the dead ball line, like when you leave scoring a try on Rugby Challenge far too late.
The nippy winger thinks he has bottled it but the TMO confirms the try.
England return fire. Ford slots a penalty before Watson scores in the corner and Youngs goes in again after a lung-busting passage of play. Ford lands yet another penalty and it’s 27-15 at half time.
What is happening, why is no one tackling?
Never forget, but this is the game of the quintessential Courtney Lawes tackle. He just kills Jules Plisson so, so bad. It is the perfect tackle, but Lawes hits him so hard Plisson goes beyond vertical and lands on his head.
In 2020 era rugby, it might be a red card. In another world entirely, the WWE, Jim Ross is screaming he’s just seen a man cut in half.
French flair
A doozy of a try is the opening salvo of the second half. The French build on England’s try line before Guilhem Guirado, who deserved so much better with the national side, sucks in both Luther Burrell and Joseph before flicking a gorgeous offload to Maxime Mermoz to dive over.
England swiftly counter. Youngs, in maybe his best game in an England shirt to that point, sets up Ford under the posts before the wiry Jack Nowell goes in minutes later.
At 55 minutes, England lead 41-25 and are just 10 points away from the championship.
Then, the turning point. An overthrown Benjamin Kayser line-out misses its mark and James Haskell lunges for the ball.
Unfortunately, by the time he’s committed, Plisson has gathered and the Wasps’ player trips the young fly-half as he saunters past the giant flanker. The TMO reviews and Haskell is off on the naughty step for 10 minutes.
France compound England’s error with more forwards flair. Mermoz feeds Nakaitaci in the French half and the Fijian-born wing burst into the England 22. He is eventually brought down before offloading to none other than Vincent bloody Debaty.
The loosehead prop, somehow and very improbably, ran a beautiful 70 metre line in support of former sevens
player Nakaitaici before crashing in over the corner. Glorious.
Vincent Debaty scores despite George Ford’s attempts
Credit: Clive Mason/Getty Images
Drama continues to final whistle
Then comes the tit-for-tat phase of the game. Billy Vunipola’s contentious grounding is followed up by Benjamin Kayser’s flop over the line off the back of an impressive French maul.
It makes the score 48-35 with 15 minutes remaining and England are now staring down the barrel needing two converted tries.
They find one on 74 minutes. Ford gives a lovely pass to Nowell to crash over for his second of the game and suddenly the impossible is within their grasp. England go hunting for that second killer try.
Beeeeeep. Penalty off a French scrum and England go for the corner. Robshaw takes and calls in the cavalry. Even wee George Ford has his head stuck in there. It collapses and England are penalised.
The game is over and France kick to tou…WAIT WHY HAS YOANN HUGET TAKEN A QUICK TAP.
France almost spill the ball back to England before Rory Kockott finally ends the madness and hoofs the ball into the South-West London sky. The cameraman pans to England’s coaching staff.
Stuart Lancaster’s head is slumped, Sam Burgess looks awkward while Henry Slade appears surprisingly chipper.
Despite England winning the game, Ireland retained their title on points difference. In the, end the game showed us the frailties of both these teams which would be exposed in September’s World Cup.
England had again fallen short of a title and would be dumped out of their home World Cup in the group stages, France would go one better but would be trounced by Julian Savea and the All Blacks in the Quarter-Finals.
Ultimately, this game mattered little. England didn’t quite done enough and France still sought their first win at Twickenham since 2005. But that’s the thing with craziness, there’s sometimes no rhyme or reason to it at all.
