France thrash England in Six Nations

PARIS - France put themselves in pole position to win the Six Nations rugby title with a record-equalling 31-6 victory over an inept England at the Stade de France overnight.

France scored three tries, through Florian Fritz after 41 seconds, Damien Traille and Christophe Dominici, while England never got close.

Halfback Dimitri Yachvili, who scored 19 and 18 points in France's previous two wins over the world champions, contributed another 16 on Sunday with four penalties and two conversions.

France were nowhere near their best, yet matched their record margin of victory over England, a 37-12 Paris win in 1972.

France and Ireland, who beat Scotland 15-9 on Saturday, have six points from four games.

France's superior points advantage, however, means that victory in Wales next Saturday will give them the title even if Ireland beat England at Twickenham.

On this performance the Irish have every chance of repeating their 2004 victory there.

"We were awful, we started poorly and never got in the game," said England coach Andy Robinson. "At no stage did we put any pressure on the French."

England captain Martin Corry also had no excuses. "The first 20 minutes - shocking," he told the BBC.

"A terrible start and we just never really recovered. There were a lot of mistakes, I don't know what to say, we've tried to play and we've played poorly."

France got off to the best possible start when England backs Josh Lewsey and Jamie Noon collided while trying to field a high Frederic Michalak kick, allowing centre Fritz an easy run into the corner.

It set the tone for the afternoon as England made mistake after mistake in just about every facet of the game.

Yachvili converted and, as England floundered, he added two penalties to put France 13-0 up after 11 minutes.

England, badly rattled by the early scores, continued to turn over the ball through aimless kicks and handling errors.

Yachvili sent another penalty wide and when England finally applied some pressure and earned their first shot at goal after half an hour, first five-eighth Charlie Hodgson sent it against an upright.

France remained in control, stretching the lead to 16-0 before England finally got on the board with a Hodgson penalty in the last minute of the half.

He was replaced for the second period by Andy Goode, who was quickly into action with a penalty to cut the lead to 10.

England, briefly re-energised and forcing a series of turnovers, added more new blood with five more replacements as the game approached the hour mark.

France tightened play up through their forwards then took an iron grip on the game with their second try after 67 minutes.

Centre Traille made a terrific break and when replacement halfback Harry Ellis failed to gather it on the line, Traille arrived to dive on the loose ball.

France finished on a high when wing Dominici intercepted a Goode pass on the England 22 to score under the posts.

"It's a huge setback, we said after the Scotland defeat we needed to come to Paris and put in a very good performance. But unfortunately we haven't done that and now the pressure is going to pile on us all," Corry said.

"At least we've got another chance against Ireland to show what we can do."

Dominici said: "I'm very proud to have beaten them, we knew that we could still win the Six Nations and now we have one more match."

- REUTERS