Following France’s dramatic title-clinching 48-46 victory over gutsy England, here are our winners and losers from the spectacularly entertaining Six Nations finale in Paris.
Winners
Thomas Ramos: Who says lightning doesn’t strike twice? It was Round Five in Lyon two years ago when the full-back stepped up to break English hearts with his flawless late penalty from distance to sneak a 33-31 win, and there he was again on Saturday night, having the decisive final say without another nerveless kick – only this time with the pressure of the Championship title being on the line.
It was a sweet strike, the final kick in his 16-point contribution, and it highlighted the value of a team having a kicker with a metronomic boot when the margins are so, so tight. England will rue how it ended but they should perhaps look at how it started, with Fin Smith missing his opening two conversions and then another early in the second half. That’s six points left behind, six points that would have made a telling difference.
Louis Bielle-Biarrey: So much was made about how the youngster smashed the Six Nations try record in the 2025 edition, his tally of eight tries eclipsing the seven scored by Ireland’s Jacob Stockdale in 2018, but he has now broken his own record with nine tries in the 2026 Championship – and four in this one game versus England.
The 22-year-old is essentially poetry in motion, his sense of incredible timing the eighth wonder of the world. The bounce of a rugby ball is supposed to be unpredictable, but he didn’t break his pacy stride when getting his hands on the two kick-throughs for his initial scores. The brace that then followed in the second half showed a different side to his finishing; first the patience to stay wide and exploit yellow card space, and then a deft kick-ahead of his own to edge Jack van Poortvliet and a perfect dive on the loose ball to score after Antoine Dupont mopped up a Ben Earl knock-on and kicked long. Superb.
Maro Itoje: Was rightly called out for his poor leading-by-actions in last weekend’s England loss in Italy. His yellow card was one of the dumbest you are likely to see, and he also came in for scrutiny for the abrupt manner in which he spoke to Fin Smith about taking the three instead of going to the corner. A response was badly needed in Paris and he definitely delivered, as he was an immovable rock that the French crashed into time and time again. The best moment was the turnover penalty he won with England defending their line towards the end of the wounding Ellis Genge yellow card. Two tries had already been leaked in the loosehead’s absence, but Itoje’s penalty win stopped the bleed, and the binning only actually ended after they had scored down the other end.
We could be ruthless and tag Itoje as a loser, as it was from where his deliberate knock-on happened that Ramos kicked the winning penalty after the breakdown where either the England captain on Mickael Guillard or Chessum on Hugo Auradou resulted in the referee Nika Amashukeli signalling the initial penalty advantage (the official didn’t call out the number of the high-tackling offender). But Itoje’s overall play was of too high a calibre for us to kick him in the nuts with an L.
Emmanuel Meafou: The Australian often gets a verbal shooing for his lack of a reliable engine (he’s certainly no Will Skelton), but he gutsed it out at the Stade de France for 65 minutes and that was important in keeping the French title chances alive in a head-spinning match. There were times during the first half when the lock, who was only making his second start of the campaign, as he was a sub in three matches, looked in beast mode, such as when he sent Itoje reeling. That set the pulse racing.
Ten carries mightn’t sound like much, but it was the highest of any home team forwards and the 23 metres that came with it were invaluable with the English pack providing fierce resistance and refusing to go quietly into a night where the debut making Temo Matiu also didn’t let France down. While the repositioned Charles Ollivon finished as the busiest French tackler, Meafou’s double-digit shift in the sector was a boon for a player who too often flatters to deceive.
Ollie Chessum: Paid a heavy price for England’s obliteration by Ireland, getting benched for last weekend’s follow-up defeat in Italy, but the lock was recalled to play at blindside and prospered. Aside from his mauling and breakdown grunt, there was a try on 26 minutes, an assist for Alex Coles to score eight minutes later, and then that intercept try in the second half to illustrate that his team hadn’t been left dead and buried by the damage of the Genge yellow.
He didn’t know it at the time but his showboating finish, rather than running as close to the posts as possible, meant a missed conversion kick, but he went on to finish the contest well, including taking a splendid catch with France restarting at 46-45 and two minutes remaining. He reminded everyone of his value after his sobering anonymity versus the Irish.
Six Nations rugby: Not even Quentin Tarantino on his wildest substance trip in the hazy 1990s could have concocted this type of twist-and-turning blockbuster finale. The permutations just kept on changing, with France and Ireland continuously swapping places in the No.1 spot over the course of a compelling match in Paris. No one would have given the Irish a cat’s chance in hell of being champions when they woundingly limped away from Stade de France following their February 5 Round One mullering.
Yet there they were, going from one hand on the trophy to no hands, then two hands and no hands again, all the way through a rollicking night’s permutations. It eventually took Ramos’ accuracy off the kicking tee to deny them, but the winner was Six Nations rugby and the extraordinary level of jeopardy it generated. Predictions in 2026 were an ass, such was the topsy-turvy nature of the action, and the final match of the 15 was no different with the destination of the trophy coming down to a referee’s call and one last-gasp kick from distance.
Matthieu Jalibert: The French out-half won’t like seeing replays of the robbery that was Chessum picking off his 51st-minute pass and racing away to score, but he came away from the encounter with his head held very high. It was 13 months ago, with France suckered by a late, late converted try in London, when Jalibert was cut loose from Fabien Galthié’s plans, and it needed an injury to Romain Ntamack to get him back into the mix at the start of this year.
His ambition to always play ball might not have sat well with some fans who felt the French team needed to be more conservative to contain England, especially after they were so defensively porous in Scotland. But Jalibert’s élan knows no bounds these days, and it was this have-a-go attitude that ultimately helped rather than hindered his side in a brutally epic contest that was like watching two heavyweight boxers trade juddering blow for blow until the last man was left standing.
Ben Earl: The England No.8 made a right old fool of himself post-game in Rome, claiming that his beaten team had played well. It was a ridiculous thing to suggest, so it was just as well that he left his actions to do the talking his time around.
He spilt claret for the cause, coming back on in a head guard that looked too loose for him, while there were also minutes lost when scarified to get a prop on with Genge binned, but he still contributed very handsomely to keeping England in the hunt with the consistency of his ball carrying. That oomph was needed after his Stadio Olimpico verbal gaffe.
Lee Blackett: So desperately robotic had England played against Scotland, Ireland and Italy, you wondered if the much-vaunted attack coach was still on the RFU payroll as he had gone from having his fingerprints all over how they created in the November to having zilch influence in the ugly mess of a kick-fest approach that was clearly Steve Borthwick’s idea.
Let’s just say the assistant must have had the patience of Job in recent weeks with England stinking and losing credibility.
To go from looking shackled and playing with fear to Saturday night’s unbridled seven-try joy was an incredible transformation and it highlighted how Blackett needs to have a greater input into how the team plays and stop this muddled Borthwick boot tactic. In Lee we trust. So should Steve.
Losers
Steve Borthwick: The few remaining staunch loyalists will insist that England’s unexpected near win was concrete proof that the maligned head coach is the real deal and that his many critics should shut it, but the charisma-bypassed boss can’t be allowed to grasp this straw of a two-point, last-gasp defeat and survive in the long run. Saturday night was supposed to be the occasion where, in his own words, England fans would flood across the Channel and see them challenge for the title.
Instead, the loss, their fourth in succession, left England finishing fifth in the 2026 table, matching the historic lows of 2018 and 2021. This Six Nations was the coach’s fourth at the helm but instead of genuine progress, there was a total collapse that this belated back-to-the-wall response at Stade de France can’t disguise. France and Ireland have both had Championship wobbles under Galthié and Andy Farrell, but they have never fallen off the cliff, and just look at who is occupying the top two spots again? Yes, France and Ireland. Their consistency is something Borthwick doesn’t have in his coaching.
Ellis Genge: We should be singing his praises, admiring his ball carrying, tipping the hat to his scrummaging and taking encouragement from his presence in the defensive line, but we can’t. No matter how we size up his positives, there is no getting away from the painful negative of his yellow card.
That maul infringement cost his team a penalty try on the blow of half-time, leaving them going off just 27-24 up instead of 27-17, and two tries were then conceded in his early second-half absence. There can be no exoneration from that type of damage, and it does call into question his value as a vice-captain at a time when there are murmurs of discontent about the leadership group in general.
Henry Pollock: It was February 21, on the occasion of his first Test start, when Ireland happily left the ‘look-at-me’ kid looking a right old pillock, so there was a weird irony in how it was his late, late ball-minding error that provided France with their opportunity to build the pressure that denied the Irish the title. He had just executed a super bit of skill, ripping the ball from Thibaud Flament, but he then got over-excited in his run, looking to play a pass and knocking on rather than just taking the tackle and allowing the support to arrive at the ruck to help see out the final minute.
With the ball split, England never got it back and Pollock was left on the losing side. If antagonism and gamesmanship were something that earned Six Nations Fantasy team points, then there might be a wisdom to his non-stop antics away from the ball, but it is really getting to the stage where he needs to cool it and just get on with his rugby. There is only so long he can acceptably be the pantomime villain.
‘Worst kit clash in history’ as fans blast ‘shameful’ France-England decision
Shaun Edwards: The French defence coach made the point in his post-game interview that this was his seventh Six Nations title win, between what he has achieved so far across the Channel and what he previously achieved with Wales. However, it really wasn’t the moment for him to be boasting about himself.
Following on from the concession of 50 points and seven tries in the loss to Scotland, the concession of 46 points and seven more tries was hardly an endorsement for whatever remedial work Edwards was in charge of on the training ground this past week. That’s a total of 96 points and 14 tries given up on two successive Saturdays, which is carnage. The assistant should have taken on the blame, accepting that his area of expertise wasn’t acceptable and had nearly blown a title, not stressing to a reporter about being 7-Up.
Rugby kits: Whichever nameless jobsworth sanctioned the team kits worn in the latest Le Crunch should be put out to pasture, as it immediately became obvious to anyone watching that the kit clash was diabolical and totally unacceptable. If the French were within their rights to wear a special occasion light blue jersey, then England should have been made to change into their alternate.
After all, if Wales could be forced to play in white last weekend against the green-clad Irish to assist the colour-blind viewers, then surely steps could have been taken to avoid this Stade de France catastrophe where it seemed from a distance that both teams were wearing white. This wasn’t affecting just the colour blind; it was affecting everyone watching. What a farce.
Demba Bamba: Let’s hope the French sub prop didn’t big himself up at the post-game celebrations as a kick in the backside would have been more appropriate, so costly was his indiscipline. His team was on a next offence card warning defending its line and clinging to a 45-39 lead with just minutes remaining when the front-rower couldn’t resist giving up another penalty.
His sin bin left his team in a dreadful situation, unable to soak up the mounting pressure that eventually led to England’s lead-taking converted try and then trying to rescue the title still a man down. Some slack could be cut if he was decent before that binning but his scrummaging wasn’t at all up to scratch after his introduction, so his night was essentially something to forget rather than celebrate.