CHRIS FOY: England were humiliated by the French a year ago but after beating Ireland they are REBORN… their Six Nations clash with Les Bleus in Lyon is all about revenge

Now repeat it. That’s the tough challenge. After scaling the heights to shock Ireland last Saturday, England are on a twin-peaks crusade that doubles as a revenge mission.

Seven days ago, coach Steve Borthwick’s team produced a thrilling, dazzling challenge to ambush the Six Nations title holders at Twickenham after being written off following their defeat to Scotland at Murrayfield. Now, in the last weekend of the championship, the motivation is different. This is all about payback and redemption.

It’s been 12 months since France came to south-west London and condemned their cross-Channel rivals to a record-breaking 53-10 defeat. It wasn’t so much Le Crunch as Le Crash. Fabien Galthie’s team had the lead on the English home field. There was destruction and humiliation for the hosts.

The scars from that ordeal have yet to heal. The memories are uncomfortably raw. There are 10 survivors of that horror show in the visiting team of 23 for this rematch and one of them is captain Jamie George. He explained how the 2023 experience would be channeled.

“We were terrible,” the Saracen whore admitted with typical candor. ‘It wasn’t just the result: we didn’t work. The bare minimum of what we should be about is fighting and showing character. That display was completely the opposite. We gave up, we looked tired, we didn’t show up physically. That’s not the kind of team we want to be and it still hurts me to this day. That is certainly in the motivation.’

They next play against France, who humiliated them 53-10 at home a year ago

Steve Borthwick’s side will be looking for revenge on Saturday when they play France in Lyon

It will help England’s quest to fight fire with fire here that they have these ghosts in mind. It will help because they can’t just fall back on the us-against-the-world desire to answer their critics this time, for the simple reason that there are no critics.

They have rightly been praised for their performances in the 23-22 win over Ireland. All the “outside noise” they often talk about has been positive for a week. There has been no circling of the wagons, so alternative fuel is required. In that scenario, it won’t be easy to reach the heights again and George knows it.

“Obviously you thrive on being written off,” the skipper said. “If you get into a corner, you fight your way out. Last weekend we achieved something special, but the fact that we can support this is a huge motivation for me. Good teams respond well to setbacks; great teams make sure they get behind that.

“Last week we got some things right emotionally and a lot of that came from sticking two fingers up at people who said bad things about us after the Scotland game. But you can use different things to stimulate emotions.’

George has a cautionary tale about the time when England came close to achieving global glory in the Far East. Their failure – losing the World Cup final 32-12 to South Africa after beating the All Blacks the weekend before – was partly because they got caught up in outside excitement and lost sight of their goal .

“I learned a big lesson in 2019 after performing in New Zealand, around things like emotional highs and lows,” George said. ‘We believed in the hype. You’re in a World Cup finals week and I had every distraction under the sun – people wanting to come along, thousands of people asking for tickets, people from school coming out of the woodwork who I hadn’t spoken to in ten years.

“It’s great, but it can be very distracting and I probably learned that the hard way.

“We definitely got it wrong in 2019. We didn’t hit the highs of the week before and what I learned is that you have to give yourself space to get away from things and think, do what you’ve been doing and then peak again. The important thing is that the peak reaches a similar level or higher than last Saturday.”

Jamie George admitted England were ‘terrible’ against France last year and there is ‘motivation’ for revenge after painful loss that still hurts him to this day

George (pictured on the ball) said it was also the motivation to back up the win against Ireland with another positive result

Realistically, Ireland will be drinking champagne from the Six Nations trophy by the time this match starts, but England have plenty to play for.

In addition to revenge, they can finish with four wins out of five – a strong return last achieved in 2020. If they were to do so, it would endorse the transition process Borthwick is overseeing, with a fast defense intertwined with attacking ambition at High speed.

On the other hand, there is a danger that England will finish fourth. Scotland and France can both overtake them with a home win at the Groupama Stadium in Lyon in this final match.

Fourth place would be a letdown given that the French, with a lingering World Cup hangover, have struggled this season without Antoine Dupont.

What Galthie’s side lacked in cohesion and confidence, they alleviated – to some extent – ​​with sheer force.

Ireland could seal the Six Nations before England play, but Borthwick’s side still have a lot to play for

France have struggled in this Six Nations campaign without key player Antoine Dupont

Their pack is huge, so this will be a test of courage and physical commitment for England. If they don’t match the intensity they produced against Ireland, things won’t end well. Despite the disappointment of losing Immanuel Feyi-Waboso – such an exciting new signing – after he was found to have concussion symptoms, George Furbank will be buoyed by his stellar contribution at Twickenham a week ago, as will Ollie Lawrence.

The pressure is off those pair, who struggled at Murrayfield, and the same goes for George Ford at the age of ten. He can control proceedings far more effectively than France’s erratic non-tackle Thomas Ramos at fly-half, although Nolann Le Garrec, the new darling in the iconic No. 9 shirt, poses a huge individual threat.

George Martin, Maro Itoje, Ollie Chessum, Sam Underhill and Co can stop the Gallic giants on the winning line and bring explosive energy with their physicality that their huge rivals lack.

And if Ellis Genge and others put dents in the opposition line, as they did so effectively against the Irish, England can climb the second of their two peaks, avenge the ordeal of twelve months ago and prove beyond doubt that they are very much in the be a good road. rise again.