England crash out of the World Cup

French joy at beating the old enemy.

England’s World Cup came to an abrupt end at ther hands of the mercurial French. The side battered by New Zealand, destroyed and shocked to the very core with defeat to minnows Tonga, showed the endemic flaws in the English game, racing into a 16 point lead that they were never likely to relinquish.

After indifferent performances in the group stages, England were expected to up their game in the knockout stages, especially against a team that had looked like a pub side at times. Perhaps this psychologically hampered England, maybe believing the game was already won.

Foden's try and Tualigi's performance was meek reward.

Credit to the French they matched England all over the park, outmuscling in the scrum, one of England’s strengths, winning lineout ball and tearing holes in a usually measly defence. When you fail to control the game in the forwards and continue to give teams kickable penalties then you will always struggle and that’s exactly what happened.

Three first half tries owed as much too poor English tackling as to the French movement. For the last two World Cups England have held the Indian sign over France ending their hopes with typical gritty English performances. This time the grit seemed to be lacking, and even when it was, basic skills and ball handling time and time again undid any good work England managed to put together.

Before the game Martin Johnson had admitted that England had been starting poorly and the opening exchanges appeared to show that this trend had ended. But with no points on the board England went into self destruct mode, allowing France to pin them back time and time again. England came out in the second half and dragged themselves back into the contest, but chances were few and far between, whereas mistakes were in abundance. Winning the second half 12-3 will be no consolation to a team which was destroyed in the first.

England were out-muscled in all departments.

Selection is always easy to criticise after the event, especially when things have gone badly. The loss of Mike Tindall allowed Johnson to experiment with both Toby Flood and Jonny Wilkinson. Both seemed to be subdued and out of sorts, only allowing the outstanding Manu Tualagi scant possession. The big debate over who should kick between Wilkinson and Flood was never really called into question as the French did not concede any kickable penalties until it was too late in the match for these to be taken. One of England’s best players in this tournament, James Haskell, was left on the bench and introduced far too late to have any noticeable impact.

Whether or not these changes would have changed anything is a purely hypothetical debate, but having seen the heart, desire and ball handling of the Welsh earlier in the day perhaps a disappointing defeat to France is better than a humiliation against the men from the valleys.

Manager Johnson has much to do to restore English pride.

In 1999 England crashed out in the quarter finals to South Africa and Jannie de Beer’s record five drop goals. What the English learnt from this, they took on, built for the next World Cup in Australia, and duly brought the trophy home. Amongst the debris and fallout that will follow, the RFU, management and players must take a long hard look at themselves if any repeat is to happen in 2015.