It would have been easy to get swept up in the euphoria that swamped Twickenham on Sunday as the tries poured in from England.

This was the epitome of modern rugby: pray on turnovers, gobble up the territory as soon as you win the ball and capitalise with batches of five points. It’s what New Zealand have been doing for years.

The game, for the first time since Martin Johnson was trundling about the turf, looked easy. It always does when your pack is producing quick ball of their own and robbing the opposition’s from them

From these two facets sprung the cause for such delirium on a sunny Sunday afternoon. They gave players like Riki Flutey time to lift his head and spot that there were flat-footed giants in his way, and that there was space in between them for him to dart. It gave Harry Ellis time to assess his options and, being a decent scrum-half, choose the right one.

By half-time, the question was being asked about record England victories over France.

But without Toby Flood, departed with a momentarily dislocated shoulder, England, as Johnson said, went ‘off plan’.

Andy Goode tried a few too many cross field punts but his boot had the subtlety of a sledge hammer when the precision of a scalpel was required. The right options, wrongly executed, and the tale of the rest of England Six Nations campaign returned.

Forty minutes then, in which this England team showed what they are capable of, followed by 40 minutes in which the deficiencies came back to the extent that they lost the second half.

The margins between things going right and things falling apart has been a fine one for England throughout this championship, even when they have hamstrung themselves with yellow cards.

They came close to the yellow peril again, conceding 13 penalties in all, to France’s 12, but tiptoed on the tightrope without ever falling off.

But it was a victory well worth savouring even if it was secured with a 40-minute performance and it is a platform, at long last for Johnson to build on.

Tom Croft played so well that James Haskell could play his rugby in Johnson’s back garden and he still wouldn’t replace the Leicester man. Delon Armitage blossomed in the wide open spaces and suggested that Lee Byrne’s claim to the Lions No.15 shirt is anything but a fait accomplis and Flutey looked once more like the player voted the best of the lot by his peers last season.

But in its proper context, this was a job well done against a French team that won’t play so poorly again this side of the next century and, pleasing though it was, it was a start for Johnson and nothing more.
That it has been met with such a rousing reception is perhaps a sign of how far England have fallen.

At least now there is evidence that their slump may have bottomed out.

If you listened closely enough on Tuesday night you could have heard the collective cursing from the majority of the rugby press as Matt Stevens’ interview went to air on Sky Sports News.

The 5pm timing of his confession was about as welcome to rugby hacks with daily deadlines as a stiletto heel in the nether regions.

It also meant that the next issue of International Rugby News would carry nothing of the biggest rugby story of the year given that we had closed the magazine the previous Friday and toddled off to the pub to congratulate ourselves on a job well done.

Nevertheless, a fine issue it promises to be, after a month that saw us take a pre-dawn stroll through Smithfield meat market with a couple of Harlequins players, speak to one man who claims the sport has saved him from a life of crime, enjoy a conversation with the lovely Felcia Field-Hall - James Haskell’s other half, and chat with Sale and England wing Mark Cueto, who is somehow on the verge of an international recall despite an eye-watering bulging disc in his back.

All that plus a comprehensive look ahead to the Six Nations, out next Wednesday.

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