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England will leave for next month’s World Cup in good heart after their six try 45-14 pounding of France at Twickenham this evening.  

England Head Coach Clive Woodward said: “This was a game England wanted to win very badly. Winning was very important for us today and all the players came through relatively unscathed.”

It was performance of pace and power from the world ranked  No. 1s and included two first-half touchdowns for left wing Ben Cohen along with tries from Jason Robinson, Iain Balshaw and Josh Lewsey.

Fly half Jonny Wilkinson stayed on the park long enough to land seven out of eight kicks, that included four opening penalties and three conversions, before handing over to understudy Paul Grayson.

England delighted the sell-out 75,000 crowd particularly in the first-half when they swept France away in the 10 minutes leading up to half-time with three tries on top of Wilkinson’s opening penalty salvo to lead 33-3.

Balshaw scored within nine seconds of the second-half kick-off to send the home support into raptures but, as England made the changes, they then had to wait until the 42nd minute before their heroes added to their tally.

France kicked-off the match and took the lead for the only time after three minutes through a Gerald Merceron penalty, but with scrum half Dimitri Yachvili penalised for kicking the ball away England leveled two minutes later with the first of Wilkinson’s penalties.

Wilkinson kicked his second boomer from 40 metres on eight minutes and added two more on 16 and 26 minutes to put England 12-3 in front.

England had been threatening to score a try for the entire game without breaching the French defence, but the bastions finally crumbled as they piled into the visitors 22 on 33 minutes.

Wilkinson put a neat chip through for Greenwood to run onto under the posts but neither he nor the covering Yashvily could touchdown, leaving it for Cohen to score his first try.

England struck again three minutes later with Wilkinson and Greenwood again both involved and Cohen on Greenwood’s shoulder to take the scoring pass and romp over for number two.

Back roared England and from a quickly taken line-out won by lock Ben Kay the ball reached Jason Robinson on the half-way line. He burst through the two opposing French defenders to scamper off down the left-hand wing to score and for Wilkinson to add his third conversion for a 33-3 interval lead.