KEY POINTS:
PARIS - England believe France played into their hands by abandoning their natural flair for a safety-first approach in Saturday's World Cup semi-final.
England, who came from behind in the last five minutes to win the match 14-9 and book their place in next weekend's final against South Africa or Argentina, admitted they were surprised by France's tactics.
Despite having more possession and spending most of the game in England's territory, France did not score a single try and rarely ran the ball, kicking it away on 47 occasions.
Although they led the match for almost an hour, France's lack of adventure cost them dearly as England seized their chance in the last five minutes to steal victory with a penalty and drop goal from Jonny Wilkinson.
It was no surprise to see England stick to their strengths and play a tight forward-based game, but flanker Lewis Moody said he was stunned that the French tried to copy them rather than attack more.
"They played a much different style of rugby to how I thought they would play," Moody said.
"I thought they would be running it all over the shop but they just kept kicking it.
"We had seen them play a bit like that before but with the players that they have, the speed and skill of their back line and the ability to offload that they have shown in the past, I thought they would test us a lot more."
England coach Brian Ashton said his team were more than happy to accommodate the French when they opted to take them on in kicking.
Ashton said England were preparing to start running the ball themselves but reverted to their natural gameplan once they realised France were not going to run it back.
"We approach each game to win it and adapt to the game. We back players to be adaptable, to be able to adapt and this is what we did," Ashton said.
"In fact, we played too much rugby. About 10 minutes into the second half, we were throwing the ball around our 10 metre line.
"But why not kick for position and see what France could do with it? Because evidently, last night, they couldn't do much."
- REUTERS
