After 23 minutes, England found their breakthrough as captain George Williams – overwhelmed by Tonga last week and initially nervy here – broke the line before a clever behind-the-back pass set up Young to score in the corner.<\/p>\n
England had, belatedly, arrived at this World Cup as a force to be reckoned with. Soon after, full-back AJ Brimson – whose direct runs pierced France time and again – led a breakaway before finding Matty Ashton.<\/p>\n
The wing had knocked on over the try line early on to spill a seemingly certain England opener, but made no mistake here for his seventh try in six Tests.<\/p>\n
Harry Smith spotted the gap before setting up Farnworth for his first try on 27 minutes. And after a period of defence against a France side – who threatened sporadically but made too many simple mistakes – Farnworth scored again nine minutes later.<\/p>\n
Williams powered over under the posts for 30-0, and then came England’s best move of the World Cup just before the break – slick through the hands to the right before Young set Farnworth back in for his third.<\/p>\n
Eight minutes after the break, Young chased down a grubber kick to bring up 40 points – before Jez Litten and Williams cut through a tiring defence and Victor Radley scored unopposed.<\/p>\n
England needed to repel another French siege, before overpowering at the other end for Litten – who impressed as an interchange – to score. Another Brimson surge led the way for try number 10, scored by Mikey Lewis.<\/p>\n
A dreadful short kick-off was caught by Young, who raced through for his hat-trick. Jack Welsby got on the act for try 12, a third score in four minutes, as the French surrendered.<\/p>\n
The 13th try – scored by Lewis who broke through two weak tackles – ensured England surpassed Samoa’s 74-point winning margin against the French.<\/p>\n
After a frustrating few minutes where they had to defend deep for their clean sheet, England finally reached 80 as Brimson scored a deserved try.<\/p>\n
Hugo Savala was also a key figure with superb kicking. He only missed one goal from 14 attempts, adding 26 points.<\/p>\n
England are far from perfect. They made six errors in the opening 20 minutes – and a better side than France, who haven’t reached the semi-finals since 1992, would have taken advantage.<\/p>\n
But it all comes down to points on the scoreboard – and England must hope they have enough.<\/p>\n
After Samoa thrashed Papua New Guinea 62-6 earlier, England were a massive 150 behind the Samoans on points difference – which, if Tonga beat Samoa next weekend, would be the deciding factor between the teams as to who reaches the semis.<\/p>\n
A hefty win here helps the English cause, but they still need work and luck to avoid missing the World Cup last four for the first time ever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After 23 minutes, England found their breakthrough as captain George Williams – overwhelmed by Tonga last week and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":655736,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-655735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}