England manager Martin Johnson was a satisfied man after seeing his side smash France 34-10 at Twickenham.
England manager full of praise for his side after victory over France
England manager Martin Johnson was a satisfied man after seeing his side run in five tries to smash France 34-10 at Twickenham.
Returning to home soil after back-to-back defeats on their travels in the RBS Six Nations, England wrapped up victory inside the first 40 minutes.
France never recovered from conceding inside the opening two minutes and they were 29-0 down by the break before finally putting up a fight.
Johnson put the superb first-half performance down to improved precision in attack, something that was lacking in the losses to Wales and Ireland in their previous two outings.
Good team
"When we do what we did today we look like a good team," said Johnson. "That was great.
"I don't think our intensity level was higher. Our precision level was better - guys saw opportunities and took them.
"I am very happy for the guys and there's a good feeling of satisfaction in the changing room.
"When you lose you are going to get criticised - you know that - and defeat is a very realistic possibility when you are playing France, so it's great."
Riki Flutey managed a try in each half while Mark Cueto, Delon Armitage and Joe Worsley also crossed in the emphatic victory.
Johnson was particularly pleased for his captain Steve Borthwick, who had come in for heavy criticism following the defeats in Cardiff and Dublin.
"I don't think he has to answer criticism, but I am happy for him that all the heartache he has had has paid off," he said of his skipper.
"It just showed that when we executed what we wanted to do we could open them up and score tries.
"The guys have confidence in what we are doing and to turn them into clinical tries was great. The coaching staff have put a lot of work in.
"There are still lots of improvements to make, but in the heat of the game there are always going to be mistakes and it's minimising them."
Although they have no chance of winning the Six Nations title, Johnson insists there is still plenty to play for when England face Scotland in their final fixture.
"It will be a tough, tough test. Scotland are very competitive and if they'd taken their chances against Wales it could have been very different," he added.
"This championship has been fantastic and we will enjoy tonight."
Disappointed
France are also out of the running for overall glory following the heavy defeat, meaning Wales and Ireland will battle it out in Cardiff to decide who will be crowned champions for 2009.
The result was even more disappointing for Les Bleus after they came into the contest off the back of ending Welsh hopes of a second successive Grand Slam.
"We wanted to follow up what we did against Wales, but there was no game today," France coach Marc Lievremont said.
"Every coach knows the difficulties of playing at Twickenham, but I'm a bit disappointed. The start of the game was terrible for us.
"We had a lot of turnovers, lost the ball in the contact, didn't contest on the floor and England got confident."
Captain Lionel Nallet added: "Our loss of discipline cost us a lot of points.
"We never really got into the game. We started playing individually, not organised together and we gave a lot of confidence to England."
