There’s no such thing as an easy grand slam and, in the very end, England’s turned out to be as hard-won as any of them. One point up with one minute to play after conceding a sixth try at the tail end of one of the great helter-skelter Test matches, their skipper, Zoe Aldcroft, had the smarts to lead the team in a slow march back from the posts to the middle of the pitch as the clock ran on into the red. The Red Roses were, at that point, one more mistake, one more missed tackle, one more France score away from going down to their first defeat since the last World Cup, in their final match before the next one.
Twickenham was only half full, but the crowd was as loud as double the number. And in all the tumult, it was the French who folded. Taïna Maka knocked the ball on from the restart. The whistle went, the ball was dead, and the game was won.
Truth is, it shouldn’t have been so close. England were 24-7 up after 15 minutes, and 31-7 up after 25 minutes, and, as if that wasn’t enough, France had just gone down to 14 after Assia Khalfaoui had been given a yellow card for a high tackle. But it was then, at the very moment that the match ought to have been over, that it burst back into life. It was all sparked by a poor pass by Natasha Hunt on England’s 22, as she flung the ball back towards Zoe Harrison, who was waiting in-goal to make the clearance. The ball came low and short, Harrison reached down for it and spilled it on to the ground.
Harrison, who had made a similar mistake against Wales earlier in the tournament, was still frantically trying to recover when France’s livewire scrum-half Pauline Bourdon Sansus, who had shot out of the line, pounced on the ball. It was a gift of a try, freely given. France came on hard after that and when Emma Sing missed a tackle on Marine Ménager they had a second in short succession and were, somehow, right back in the match. They could easily have had a third right before half-time, if Ménager hadn’t knocked the ball on as she cut through the English line for a second time.
There were a few unusual sights and sounds around Twickenham, more pink cowboy hats than you usually see in the West Car Park, for one, and plenty more children dancing in the aisles, too, but perhaps the most incongruous of the lot was the unmistakable chorus of “Allez Les Bleues!” that started to ring out from the grandstands in the 45th minute, over the top of the cries of “C’mon England!” The French haven’t beaten England since 2018, but they were pushing hard now, and England, who are so used to winning, found themselves clinging desperately on to their shrinking lead.
Great teams need good opposition, and England looked as if they hadn’t faced too much of it lately. They veered between being imperious in one minute, and accident-prone in the next. They had moments in which they were utterly irresistible, Abby Dow was especially good on the right wing, and their front row of Hannah Botterman, Lark Atkin-Davies, and Maud Muir were formidable in midfield, and in the maul. Aldcroft was wonderful all game long. She hauled England back into control of the match by finishing off a length-of-the-field try after Harrison slipped through a gap in the French midfield.
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But then, in the very next minute, someone would go and spoil it all by spilling a simple pass, or slipping off a tackle after the French had won a turnover. John Mitchell said afterwards that he wasn’t happy with their defence and Sing, in particular, had a hard lesson in what it takes in Test rugby.
These are the kinds of mistakes that cost matches. While they all added up to a hell of an entertaining game, England ought not to have got away with making so many of them. Once the celebrations are over, they will have to ask themselves whether this level of performance will be good enough if they make it back here to Twickenham for the World Cup final in five months’ time. This was their seventh straight Six Nations title, and their 25th win in a row. You might think it’s impossible to improve on a record like that, but deep down they will know they can be better yet, and that one of these days, they will need to be, too.