RUGBY: Even the events of Saturday night at the same stadium somehow pointed to an England win, writes Gerry Thornley at the Telstra Stadium.
Form is temporary, experience is permanent. Driving toward the Telstra Stadium again yesterday, the heavens opened, flashes of lightning were briefly accompanied by hailstones and the thought occurred that Clive Woodward had conducted a rain dance. Manna from heaven.
"Just like Durban," ventured one L'Equipe journalist, in reference to the downpour that preceded France's semi-final defeat to South Africa in 1995. With each passing minute as the rain teemed down, French journalists became more and more hangdog, whilst their English counterparts seemed to be beaming.
Their evergreen dogs of war would love the unavoidable trench warfare that would follow, and in an equally inevitable battle for territory and three-pointers, they had the greatest three-pointer in the history of the game, Jonny Wilkinson, and France had Frederic Michalak, "a baby" at this level, as his coach Bernard Laporte described him earlier in the week.
The rain having briefly relented before the kick-off, France, in truth, threatened to make a real match of it. Their defence was again an impenetrable wall and there would only be three line breaks in the match.
Fabien Pelous put in a monster hit on Will Greenwood, his forearm forcing a spillage. They were meeting England head on.
As English forwards coach Andy Robinson had forecast, every scrum and lineout was a battle in itself. France actually made some initial inroads, shunting England backward in an early scrum, though even the lineouts would become something of a lottery, and in response to Wilkinson's ninth-minute drop goal, Serge Betsen pilfered a marginal try off the tail of a lineout after lengthy deliberation by TV match official Andrew Cole.
It looked like game on and it might have been had Frederic Michalak landed the two kickable penalties that then came his way. He missed both. Christophe Dominici was deservedly sinbinned for tripping Jason Robinson, Olivier Magne was sacrificed to the wing, and England were ruling the waves; their scrum upped a gear, their lineout increasingly secured the cleaner ball, while obliging Fabien Galthie to scoop tap-downs on pressurised French throws.
Forced more and more onto the back foot, their back row faded from view.
They are not, never will be, a back-foot back row. At their brilliant athletic best as auxiliary backs with the sun either literally or figuratively on their backs, they are possibly the most potent back row around, but this wasn't their night. Once in retreat they don't have the dog in them, the real physical presence to turn the game around.
As for the remorseless, remarkable English triumvirate of Richard Hill, Lawrence Dallaglio and Neil Back, well, they can be anything, anywhere, anytime, but this was tailor-made for them.
Back, for a change almost, did all his damage close in, making two of the biggest breaks of the match as well. Hill seemed simply to be everywhere. He and Dallaglio went bearhugging French close-in runners for fun.
Earlier in the day, Dallaglio had vowed he was going to have a big game and during the national anthems, tears of emotion were streaming down his face. You feared for France then, and he had a superb second half.
Increasingly they, Phil Vickery and the excellent, ubiquitous Steve Thompson and co dominated the line of contact. At first it was only inches, but gradually it became yards, and to the French anyway, it must have seemed like miles, as they began coughing the ball up under unyielding pressure.
England simply kept the ball better in contact, and had exactly 60 per cent of the ball and 60 per cent of the possession. Once Jonny-boy was worked into range, the French cracked, but even if they did keep their shape and discipline, he'd nonchalantly knock off drop-goals.
His second, like the first, was struck with his weaker, right foot and steered England ahead for the first time. When he added an injury-time penalty for a 12-7 interval lead, Swing Low reverberated around the ground louder than ever before. To be honest you could have called it off then and there.
It didn't help France's cause that they played a quarter of the match with a man down. They could have little argument, and didn't have, with Christophe Dominici's sin-binning, but Betsen's was a different matter.
Betsen, to his credit, continued trying to impose himself physically, especially on Wilkinson, and arguably was overcommitted to the fractionally late tackle on the outhalf, but it was, as Laporte maintained, a very harsh call. In uncanny echoes of the previous day, the giant-screen replays were accompanied by deafening boos and Paddy O'Brien was perhaps swayed a little by that too.
It was certainly no worse than George Smith's late hit on Justin Marshall the night before, but it didn't help Betsen's cause that he had been warned moments earlier for not rolling away after the tackle. Nor, one suspects, that it was England's most cherished player he'd left on the deck.
It wouldn't have made a blind bit of difference to the result mind.
Wilkinson duly dusted himself off and nailed the ensuing penalty, adding his third drop-goal (taking his tally to seven in the tournament) and a couple more penalties. Meantime, Michalak missed another couple of long-range efforts and, having skewed four attempted cross-kicks or up-and-unders, was given the shepherd's hook. A painful lesson for the 21-year-old great white hope of French rugby.
As a token gesture, leading 24-7 near the end, England went wide. They didn't have to go wide all night save for Dominici's tripping of Robinson, and thereafter you hardly saw Billy Whizz's twinkletoed sidestep again.
But when you know that most sorties into enemy territory will be translated into a three-pointer, no matter what the opposition do about it, then in conditions like this what's the point in doing anything else?
SCORING SEQUENCE:
9 mins Wilkinson drop-goal 3-0; 10 mins Betsen try, Michalak con 3-7; 30 mins Wilkinson pen 7-6; 38 mins Wilkinson drop-goal 7-9; 40 mins Wilkinson pen 12-7; half-time 12-7; 55 mins Wilkinson pen 15-7; 58 mins Wilkinson drop-goal 18-7; 64 mins Wilkinson pen 21-7; 73 mins Wilkinson pen 24-7.
TEAMS:
ENGLAND: J Lewsey (Wasps); J Robinson (Sale), W Greenwood (Harlequins), M Catt (Bath), B Cohen (Northampton); J Wilkinson (Newcastle), M Dawson (Northampton); T Woodman (Gloucester), S Thompson (Northampton), P Vickery (Gloucester), M Johnson (Leicester, capt), B Kay (Leicester), R Hill (Saracens), L Dallaglio (Wasps), N Back (Leicester). Replacements: J Leonard (Harlequins) for Vickery (4-5 mins), and for Woodman (79 mins), K Bracken (Saracens) for Dawson (39-40 mins and 70 mins), M Tindall (Bath) for Catt (69 mins), L Moody (Leicester) for Hill (73 mins), D West (Leicester) for Thompson (79 mins).
FRANCE: N Brusque (Biarritz); A Rougerie (Montferrand), T Marsh (Montferrand), Y Jauzion (Toulouse), C Dominici (Stade Francais); F Michalak (Toulouse), F Galthie (Stade Francais, capt); J-J Crenca (Agen), R Ibanez (Saracens), S Marconnet (Stade Francais), F Pelous (Toulouse), J Thion (Biarritz), S Betsen (Biarritz), I Harinordoquy (Pau), O Magne (Montferrand). Replacements: C Poitrenaud (Toulouse) for Dominici (34 mins), O Milloud (Bourgoin) for Crenca (62 mins), C Labit (Toulouse) for Betsen (64 mins), G Merceron (Montferrand) for Michalak (64 mins). Sin-binned: Dominici (23-33 mins), Betsen (53-63 mins).
Referee: P O'Brien (New Zealand)
