LONDON: England trainer Steve Borthwick approved his aspect were given an enormous truth take a look at following a record-breaking 53-10 defeat by way of France at Twickenham.
Reigning Six Nations kings France maintained their hopes of a a success identify defence with a ruthless show as they ended an 18-year look ahead to a Championship win on the London house of their arch-rivals in impressive taste.
“We’re incredibly disappointed,” mentioned Borthwick. “Immense credit to France — their power, pace and class showed. It shows where the gap is.”
Saturday’s 43-point margin of defeat used to be England’s heaviest house loss, topping the 36-point hole inflicted by way of South Africa within the Springboks’ 42-6 good fortune at Twickenham in 2008.
And this humiliating thrashing used to be additionally England’s third-worst loss anyplace.
Only a 76-0 rout suffered by way of an under-strength workforce towards Australia in Brisbane at the 1998 ‘Tour from Hell’ and a 58-10 defeat by way of South Africa in Bloemfontein in 2007 surpassed this opposite in England’s 152 years as a Test rugby country.
‘No illusions’
France outclassed England in all departments as they made gentle of reputedly tricky stipulations at a rainswept Twickenham by way of operating in seven tries.
Thibault Flament, Charles Ollivon and Damien Penaud all crossed England’s line two times after Thomas Ramos, who scored 23 issues in all, went over for the hole five-pointer.
“No one is under any illusions about what we need to do,” mentioned Borthwick. “We’ve been pretty up front about that throughout.”
The former England captain added: “We sought after to know precisely how the improvement of this workforce has long gone and the place we’re at in comparison to the most efficient groups on this planet. We fell significantly brief, that’s the truth.
“I said we’d have a good understanding of where we’re at as a team by the end of the Championship and you can see how much work we’ve got to do.”
England, the dropping finalists in 2019, have only a topic of months to show issues round prior to September’s get started of the World Cup in France.
“We’re going to apply ourselves in every way, shape or form to make sure we give our best efforts and that’s what we’re going to do,” mentioned Borthwick.
But within the temporary lifestyles received’t get any more straightforward for England, who end their Six Nations away to Ireland in Dublin on March 18.
The Irish, who began this weekend most sensible of the sector scores, may well be 80 mins clear of a Grand Slam in the event that they beat Scotland in Edinburgh on Sunday.
“We have a lot of work to do and it shows where we are at,” mentioned England captain Ellis Genge after main his nation for the primary time following Borthwick’s resolution to bench Owen Farrell.
“We misplaced the touch house and chased tails and everybody will write us off and that’s good — we simply need to recover.
“France are brilliant and have shown why they are number two in the world and we are way off where we want to be,” the prop ahead added.
