Ellis Genge attempted desperately to rally England‘s battered, bowed and bewildered troops after being taught a “painful lesson” by the rampant French.
The prop’s opportunity to lead his country against Les Bleus ended in abject humiliation as his side endured a record 53-10 Twickenham thrashing.
Steve Borthwick’s side leaked the most points ever at headquarters, while it was their worst Six Nations defeat and also third heaviest of all time. The only two previous bigger losses were 76-0 against Australia in Brisbane in 1998 and 58-10 v South Africa in Bloemfontein in 2007. But this one was a first-choice team playing at home.
Genge, who was made skipper with regular captain Owen Farrell on the bench, admitted: “We were taught a painful and harsh lesson. We have to put our hands up and admit we were well beaten by a brilliant French team. We were way off where we wanted to be and it was one of the worst performances by an England team.
“If you are 20 per cent off you get punished. We asked the boys to keep fighting and we did for 80 per cent of the time. They built a great score and had momentum and we didn’t claw it back.
“If I had the answers to put things right for the Ireland game I’d be somewhere else earning millions of pounds. We need to be a lot better in the contact area, which is down to the forwards. But we have to learn from it and put things right in training this week.
“The guys are down in the dressing room which is understandable but you have to take it on the chin and pick yourselves up. There’s no point shouting and bawling and pointing fingers. We win and lose as a team.
“We are going to graft and try to get better for next weekend. I’ve been in this situation at club level when everyone writes you off but it just makes you more determined to prove them wrong.”
Borthwick, whose men now have the unenviable task of finishing another dismal Six Nations campaign at the home of the world’s No. 1 side next Saturday, said: “We came up incredibly short against the second best team in the world. There is clearly a gap between us and the top teams and we have to address that fact to see how we can close it.
“We were overpowered and have to learn from it and be better. It shows just how much work we need to do. We play Ireland next week and they are the best team in the world. We are incredibly disappointed with our performance and couldn’t get a foot-hold in the game. We knew they had immense power and size in their team. We had plans to try and counter that but didn’t execute them properly.
“We have different threats next week and have to be able to deal with them and impose our own game on them.”
Lock Maro Itoje admitted: “It is not going to be easy to wipe this out but we need to build forward. We want to keep fighting. We have to face the facts, we weren’t good enough and there is no hiding when you have a performance like that.”
Sir Clive Woodward said: “England now have to go and play the Irish in Dublin…..that’s a sobering thought!”
France, inspired by scrum-half Antoine Dupont and Charles Ollivon, could still win the title if they beat Wales and England do them a favour in Dublin. Dupont said: “We’re finding it hard to realise when you see the scoreboard. 53-10 at Twickenham in the den of rugby. It will remain historic. I’m happy with our match, our result, the performance.”
French lock Thibaud Flament, who started his rugby career with Loughborough Students, said: “This game means a lot. It is a day I will remember for the rest of my life.”
