A text from a friend midway through the first half at Twickenham on Saturday could, you felt, succinctly sum up the feeling of the entire crowd at England HQ.

“I’m speechless,” he began, before going on with such ferocity that suggested he was anything but. “This is the most unsatisfying game I’ve ever watched because the game is being determined by one man. How can you rate England on this? Mallett wants shooting for picking Bergamasco at No.9.”

This much was hard to argue with come the half-time whistle. Bergamasco had a hand – or not, in all three of England’s first half scores either by his wayward passing or simple lack of scrum-half nous.

With the Stade Francais man mercifully removed at half-time, we could at least expect a second half whereby England could be assessed on their own merits.

And that is the problem. When they were asked to create their own fortune, rather than profit from the errors of their opponents, England were awful.