France face win-or-bust Six Nations duel with Scotland after England rout Wales / Photo: Adrian Dennis - AFP
France face win-or-bust Six Nations duel with Scotland after England rout Wales
France faced a win-or-bust Six Nations showdown against Scotland in Paris on Saturday after England routed sorry Wales to send the title battle down to the wire.
England scored 10 tries in a record 68-14 bonus-point triumph in Cardiff to move top of the table with 20 points, four ahead of the French.
France must now defeat Scotland in the concluding game of the tournament to wrap up the title, their first since romping to the Grand Slam in 2022.
Ireland's hopes of wrapping up a third successive Six Nations ended despite defeating Italy 22-17 in Rome in the day's opening match.
"We've been building towards this, each game we've shown a different side to us, we're just happy to finish it well," said England captain Maro Itoje.
England had their match in Wales all but wrapped up at half-time after scoring five tries to lead 33-7 at the break.
Itoje opened the scoring as early as the third minute, with Tom Roebuck, Tommy Freeman, Chandler Cunningham-South and Will Stuart all following the skipper's lead.
Scrum-half Alex Mitchell, debutant Henry Pollock, with two of his own, Joe Heyes and Cunningham-South again added five more tries between them in the second half.
That allowed England to surpass their previous record Six Nations winning margin over Wales of 40 points set during a 50-10 success at Twickenham in 2006.
For Wales, their 17th successive Test defeat represented an unwanted record for a Tier One country in the professional era.
Their 11th straight championship loss meant they had finished with back-to-back wooden spoons for the first time.
"It was a tough game. We are gutted with the result but full credit to England, they were brilliant today and clinical when they had that ball," said Wales skipper Jac Morgan.
- 'Game-plan worked well' -
In Rome, Italy took the lead at the Stadio Olimpico through Monty Ioane's 12th-minute try but the Azzurri played more than half the match at least a man down after Michele Lamoro and Giacomo Nicotera were yellow-carded, while No 8 Ross Vintcent was shown a 20th-minute red card for a head-on-head challenge.
Ireland hooker Dan Sheehan scored a hat-trick of tries, with full-back Hugo Keenan also crossing Italy's line.
"Happy with five points, we probably needed a bit more points difference," Sheehan told ITV.
"Fair play to Italy, I thought their game-plan worked well and they put us under pressure."
Since being edged out 26-25 by England at Twickenham, France have been in commanding form.
Even the early loss through injury of captain Antoine Dupont in last weekend's 42-27 win over Ireland in Dublin failed to derail their progress.
Stand-in skipper Gregory Alldritt said Dupont's absence this weekend had "changed nothing" in terms of the team's overall approach.
"We're at the end of a Six Nations, the system has been in place since the start," Alldritt told reporters on Friday. "We've continued with what we've been working on for seven weeks."
The No 8 added: "We've progressed little by little. We've matured, become more consistent and I hope we'll prove that once again on Saturday night."
Scotland co-captain Finn Russell, who spent five years playing for Paris-based club Racing 92, is well aware of the task facing his side.
"They (France) have got everything to play for," said the fly-half. "Hopefully, we can disrupt it. I know it's going to be a massive challenge."
J.Morris--RTC
