Riki Flutey: Mr. Muscle loves the jobs you hate...
England 34-10 FranceCor, Blimey! Who expected that? Everyone bar the 22 men dressed in white and their relieved coaching staff, that’s who.
Twickenham’s great pillars of English rugby stood firm, chests blown out with full gusto, as Martin Johnson and his army of soldiers rolled back to the years of land, hope and glory with a breathtaking five-try blitz over a shell-shocked France.
They’ve been talking about a change of season around the Red Rose for a while now and with the spring sunshine blossoming around HQ on Sunday, a new era finally dawned.
The gloomy dark clouds lingering through petulant indiscipline, a poor run of results and wasted talent – England picked the prettiest day of 2009 to show their true colours – disappeared after 40 minutes.
Sure, the penalty count soared in the second-half and will itch away upon Johnson’s broad shoulders, but the almost smiling manager refused to scratch below the surface of a resounding triumph.
The capacity crowd had barely captured its breath back after belting out the anthems before Mark Cueto got the ball rolling but nobody would’ve anticipated what followed. Even the gentleman seven pints deep, three rows in front, could’ve struggled to predict such a party.
England executed their game-plans to perfection. Their running lines, passing and poaching were right on cue – a jovial chap to my left even found time to joke about France turning up in their away strip such was the savage stripping of the men dressed in blue.
France did make a fist of things, winning the second-half, 10-5, but only the most cynical of Englishman could care less.
The French were awful. The decision to play Sebastien Chabal at openside flanker wasn’t quite up there with Nick Mallett’s Mauro Bergamasco experiment, but the giant caveman was ineffective and ominous, and he wasn’t alone.
The long-haired pin-up’s partners in crime, Imanol Harinordoquy and Thierry Dusautoir, so far sensational in this year’s Championship found England’s first brick wall of defence too tall to mount.
At the heart of the tempestuous defensive rear-guard was Captain Steve Borthwick. It was difficult to understand what pleased Johnson more, the result or the performance of his talismanic skipper, who has been a punchbag for the critics since his takeover.
A pest in the line-out, Borthwick had the bit between his teeth and smashed into tackles, ultimately doing what a captain should by leading from the front.
Able forward deputies came in man-of-the-match Tom Croft, the superior athlete on the park and Simon Shaw, at the grand old age of 36, sharpening his dirty paws and slowing down ball whenever necessary.
If the forwards laid the platform, it was the backs that finally flourished, giving the sun-kissed capacity crowd a taste of what’s to come from Brian Smith’s genius play-book.
Harry Ellis utilised some rare quick-ball and England reaped rich rewards with Riki Flutey settling in as the fulcrum of a ball-hungry back-line.
It was the Kiwi’s outside break that freed Cueto for the first score before the Sale Shark returned the favour for England’s second after some imaginative running and delicate hands, involving Nick Easter, Toby Flood and Joe Worsley.
Delon Armitage capped an accomplished performance with a sweet score before further delicious handling from England’s No. 8 and Borthwick set up Worsley for the fourth try on the stroke of half-time. Time for a 'cheeky livener' methinks and then we can wake up from this dream. 29-0 – game over!
The downpoint of an outstanding afternoon came in the shape of Flood, whose shoulder injury in the build-up to Worsley’s score looks like it might force the Leicester Tiger out of next weekend’s Calcutta Cup fixture against the Scottish.
This wasn’t a day for upsets and England ignored to be hamstrung by Flood’s loss and started the second-half as they did the first. This time it was another searing break from Armitage that enabled Flutey to dive over for his second.
France staged a mini-revival, catching a tired English defence cold with Dimitri Szarzewski and Julien Malzieu going over, but there was only one team walking off the turf with a spring in its step. And they were dressed in white, standing head and shoulders above their doubters, enjoying ever second of it.