England thrash France 34-10

Five-try England produced their finest performance by far under Martin Johnson to thrash France 34-10 in an extraordinary Six Nations en-counter at Twickenham yesterday. England, on the ropes after defeats by Wales and Ireland, cut loose to lead 29-0...

Five-try England produced their finest performance by far under Martin Johnson to thrash France 34-10 in an extraordinary Six Nations en-counter at Twickenham yesterday.

England, on the ropes after defeats by Wales and Ireland, cut loose to lead 29-0 at half-time after tries for an inspired Riki Flutey, Mark Cueto, Delon Armitage and Joe Worsley as ragged France looked unrecognisable from the side who beat Wales so impressively two weeks ago.

Flutey's second try at the start of the second half stretched the lead and had England's long-suffering fans dreaming of surpassing their 98-year-old 37-0 record win over their cross-channel rivals.

France, whose outside title hopes disappeared with the defeat, eventually stemmed the tide and hit back with tries by Dimitri Szarzewski and Julien Malzieu but they could not dampen England's hugely justified full-time celebrations.

Next fixtures

Saturday: Italy vs France; England vs Scotland; Wales vs Ireland.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.