England are in pole position to win their first RBS 6 Nations Championship since 2003 as Ben Foden’s try helped put France to the sword in their 17-9 defeat.
A tight first half finished 9-9 with Toby Flood and Dimitri Yachvili trading three penalties apiece before England stepped up their performance after the break.
France’s failure to deal with the second-half restart resulted in full-back Foden crashing over before replacement Jonny Wilkinson added a fourth penalty to end Les Bleus’ run of eight consecutive Six Nations victories.
The Grand Slam is now England’s for the taking and Martin Johnson will have undoubtedly been impressed with how his side delivered a mature performance to shut France out in the second half.
Last year, France dominated England up front but the Red Rose front row got a small measure of revenge inside four minutes when they smashed their counterparts backwards.
Referee George Clancy awarded a penalty and Flood continued his immaculate kicking record in the Championship to nudge England in front only for Yachvili – the architect of France’s last Six Nations win at Twickenham in 2005 – to level things up shortly afterwards.
England regained the initiative through two Flood penalties after the French were twice caught offside but the advantage was shortlived.
Nick Easter’s transgression at a ruck allowed Yachvili to make it 9-6 before it was all even again after France came out on top at a scrum.
Even more encouraging for the Les Bleus front row was the sight of English loosehead Andrew Sheridan being helped from the field to be replaced by the fresh-faced Alex Corbisiero, who was winning just his second cap.
While both sides regularly looked to feed their backline, there was precious little space for any of the flair players on either side to work any real openings.
And ultimately there was nothing to separate the teams at halftime despite Yachvili shaving the post with a penalty in first-half injury time.
But if that was a bad way to end the first half for Yachvili it was nothing compared to how he started the second half.
The scrum-half took a split second too long with his clearing kick and was charged down by Tom Palmer in a move which led to a 5m scrum.
After initially moving the ball right, England came back left where Flood and Mark Cueto combined to feed Foden who powered his way through two French defenders.
Flood ended his run of successful kicks in this year’s Championship with a missed conversion but France were on the ropes and nearly conceded a second try in a matter of minutes.
Half-backs Flood and Youngs ripped through the heart of the French defence and gave Chris Ashton the opportunity to execute his trademark swallow dive between the posts only for play to be pulled back for a forward pass.
That though would be one of Flood’s last contributions before he was replaced by Wilkinson on 50 minutes and his first act was to nail a 50m penalty – a score that takes him ahead of New Zealand’s Dan Carter as the leading international points scorer of all time.
Six years ago, England had squandered a 17-9 advantage to Yachvili’s boot but the Biarritz star’s radar was slightly off as a second penalty struck the post and stayed out.
France though retained the initiative and centres Yannick Jauzion and Aurelien Rougerie only just failed to reach fly-half Francois Trinh-Duc’s clever kick through.
England also had a great opportunity to get a second try to seal the win with ten minutes left when Ashton was clear through but his ambitious pass to fellow wing Cueto was cut out by Yoann Huget.
It wasn’t needed however as England held out and now face Andy Robinson’s Scotland at Twickenham on March 13.