{"id":52743,"date":"2026-03-15T02:59:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-15T02:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/?p=52743"},"modified":"2026-03-15T02:59:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T02:59:07","slug":"cn9er299387oat_mediumrssat_campaignrss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/2026\/03\/15\/cn9er299387oat_mediumrssat_campaignrss\/","title":{"rendered":"Six Nations 2026: England intrigue increases in defeat by France"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <script data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\" async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-1669381584671856\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- Africa tv video display -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-1669381584671856\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"3579572842\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\">\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;England were blistering &#8211; their pace, their skill, their intensity, their physicality and they had a genuine chance of winning,&#8221; said former England scrum-half Matt Dawson on BBC Radio 5 Live.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I feel for the players because they are going to be down, but I want them to be super, super positive because if they carry on playing like that for the next 18 months they are going to challenge in big tournaments and big games, and they are going to win big games.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">And yet. When the adrenaline levels drop, questions will also be raised.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Should England have made victory stick?<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">With the restart regathered by Chessum, the ball safely at the base, Sam Underhill, Henry Pollock and Chandler Cunningham-South on their feet as a potential pod, and only two minutes left on the clock, could England have kept ball in hand and run down the clock?<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Instead, Jack van Poortvliet, who had brought some zip off the bench, opted to kick the ball away and infield. Matthieu Jalibert, a broken-field fiend, accepted the invite to run back and England were back under the pump.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Closing out victories was a repeated failing in a series of close defeats in autumn 2024. It is a habit that England don&#8217;t want to reacquire.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">One they definitely haven&#8217;t kicked yet is indiscipline. Only one of the 162 team campaigns in Six Nations history &#8211; Italy 2002 &#8211; has picked up more cards than England have this year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Eight yellows, two of which combined to make Henry Arundell&#8217;s 20-minute red against Scotland, have hobbled England throughout.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Ellis Genge was dispatched to the sin-bin seat of shame in Paris, adjudged to have cynically dragged down a France driving maul that was destined for the line.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Borthwick described the decision as harsh and said he would seek clarification with World Rugby as to why a penalty try was awarded.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It may have been a marginal call, but, backed up to their own line, England knew the stakes were high and the punishment for any infringement would be heavy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">France raced back into the lead in the prop&#8217;s absence.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\" async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-1669381584671856\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- Africa tv video display -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-1669381584671856\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"3579572842\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\">\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><br \/>\n#Nations #England #intrigue #increases #defeat #France<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;England were blistering &#8211; their pace, their skill, their intensity, their physicality and they had a genuine chance of winning,&#8221;&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mzansi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52743"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52743\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52745,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52743\/revisions\/52745"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}