Six Nations analysis: How England’s attack unpicked France to FINALLY break the curse against Tier One opposition

Sam Larner 13 Feb 2025 10:42 AM

Following England’s dramatic 26-25 round two Six Nations victory over France, Sam Larner breaks down Elliot Daly’s match-winning try.

Steve Borthwick’s side has struggled to finish off tight games against top-ranked teams recently, falling three times to the All Blacks in 2024 and once to both South Africa and Australia despite holding leads in the second half of each of those Tests.

However, at the Allianz Stadium last Saturday, England turned what would have been another narrow defeat into a clutch victory thanks to a well-worked try with the clocking winding down.

We take a look at Daly’s try and how England used a popular set-up play among elite teams to unpick the Shaun Edwards-led defence in the Six Nations thriller.

Breaking down Elliot Daly’s match-winner

This was a fantastic game on Saturday night between England and France with Borthwick’s men finally breaking that curse against top tier one teams and getting the job done through Daly. But how did this happen? How did they score that match-winner after failing to find that killer blow in tight Test matches previously?

Let’s have a look. So we’ve got to break this down even though it is a very simple move which a lot of teams at the elite level are using. Let’s take a look at it from above.

Instead of going to Fin Smith or Marcus Smith – who are the two playmakers – England get the ball to Ollie Lawrence from the maul; so both England and France’s packs are tied up there which gives them loads of space to operate in.

This doesn’t go to the playmakers though because it is actually quite a simple pass, it’s what we call an ‘X-ball’. Lawrence is going to pass out the back of Tommy Freeman who is running a hard line with the pass going to Fin Smith.

The reason why Fin Smith doesn’t get his hands on the ball until this stage of the attack is because he’s now got a decision to make when the ball comes to him, he’s got a few options.

1. He can go himself: If France have tied themselves into those hard lines from Lawrence and Freeman – then there might be space for him to just hold onto the ball and go through himself.
2. Pass to Marcus Smith (MS): If they pack tight and there’s no space in front of him, he might have to go all the way out to MS in the middle of the pitch.
3. Run an arc and pass to Elliot Daly (ED): He ends up doing this as he runs this lovely little looping line for ED to break through.

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What is very important here is to watch Daly’s actions as the line he runs here is absolutely brilliant because what he does is he comes on the angle and he’s hidden from the defence for as long as possible.

As a defender, that’s horrible to deal with because you don’t know where he’s going to pop up from – he is hidden from play – and as he comes out, he straightens out his run.

He still tries to get on the outside of Antoine Dupont but he’s straightened out his run so he can get through. What we see a lot at the grassroots level is that when a player has run that loop, they don’t straighten up enough.

So you just end up blistering across the pitch, that’s just too easy to find.

If we now bringing the French defence, let’s see how this impacts them.

So Lawrence and Freeman tighten up those front three defenders, preventing them from drifting wider, Dupont (AD) is drawn towards the ball as he should. They’re all tightening up and then when the ball’s gone, it’s too late.

So Louis Bielle-Biarrey (LB) is caught between does he step in to help to make a hit on Daly or does he stay wide to cover the threat of Marcus Smith?

Ultimately, he stays wide and we know what happens from there. It’s a horrible position for the defender to be in. Deciding whether to step in or step out, Who are you going to take?

Even if he makes the right decision. He or any defender is probably not going to be able to put in the dominant hit that is required, so you are probably just delaying the inevitable.

How Grenoble used this structure

This is not a particularly new move that England ran, it is something that we see across so many teams at the elite level.

Let’s take a look at what Grenoble did, it’s not exactly the same as he don’t have the maul in the corner but the principles and set-up are similar.

The key to this is simplicity. From this position, there are almost unlimited options:

1. The carry just keeps all the ball, goes through the gap.
2. The tip-on pass to the 14.
3. The pass out the back, the ‘X ball’ as we saw earlier, one guy runs hard, one guy runs out the back and that could then open up many other options.
4. They could go wide.
5. They could go back inside.

So many options here in quite a simple attacking shape. This square shape is very common in professional rugby.

Instead, they go out the back, then back inside and through the hole for a wonderful try.

Now all that comes from is simplicity. None of those passes were longer than two metres, but the number of options means it’s almost impossible to defend because you don’t know who as a defender who you are going to go for and by the time they show you their hand, it’s too late to make a tackle.

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Inspiration from Saints

When the receiver gets the ball, anything could happen from here. He could carry the ball, hit the short line, or he could go out the back.

There’s space for all those options and then you’ve got these two guys out wide holding their feet waiting for the ball to come out because if it does come out, they fancy their chances out wide.

Even as the attack develops, we still have no idea and we see that Harlequins have to commit because they’re so close to the line.

Saints force the Quins defence to commit to one option and they pick the wrong one and it’s a pretty easy try on the outside.

That all comes from is Northampton creating those options, showing the defence a multitude of different things and getting them to pick which one they fancy.

Sale Sharks’ twist

Sale do something a little bit different as they go for the carry but it’s not quite worked out and this is a wonderful position to be in.

It is similar to Lawrence getting the ball in the first example but this is going to go to a forward and then we’re going to have our backs manoeuvering around him.

We see this ‘X ball’ line, one hard, one out the back – that Daly line where the player swooping around the corner.

So we see it goes out the back on the X and the receiver has got so much space and he carries it under the posts.

But even if he doesn’t, if the outside defender steps in, it’s an easy pass just to get that wide.

What can the defence do here? Well, not a huge amount. The problem is they need to get off the line, but by going off the line they show exactly where the space is, because you can’t really disguise it.

So the defence can get off the line, put them under pressure, and hope that by putting them under pressure they pick the wrong option.

But these are international elite-level sportsmen, they’re not going to do that.

Exeter Chiefs

Finally, let’s have a look at how Exeter Chiefs used this shape to unpick Leicester Tigers’ defence.

We see that four-person shape by Exeter, we’ve got the hard line, we’ve got the out the back and it’s almost exactly what we saw from England and we got Olly Woodburn burn swooping down the corner on that Daly line out in the back.

But this time it’s going to go the mis-pass to Woodburn. This makes it a little bit difficult because you can see here that defence have got up in his face.

There’s actually less space than we saw in the previous example.

But what Woodburn does well is that he just keeps the ball alive. This is a thing that is a massive focus for so many coaches is two touches. Can you as an attacker get two touches on the ball?

Woodburn does this perfectly as he passes and then he stays alive as do the other inside attackers so when the ball eventually comes back to him, he’s perfectly in position to get that in the corner and set up the try out wide.

Takeaways

So there are a couple of takeaways from this, firstly is that it is not about complexity. Attacking shapes do not need to be complex but you do have to have that shape, a simple one, where every player is an option.

Everyone should expect to receive the ball and once you’ve got that simple shape and then look at adding pace. If you’re slow, it doesn’t matter how complex or how neat your passing is, it’s too easy for the defence to lead and just bounce off one attacker onto the next to make that tackle.

So simple, done at pace and you see those skills basic skills. We’re not talking about 20-metre or 30-metre passes, it’s about nailing those little pops of 2-3 metres, that’s all you need to do. And if you do that right, good luck to any defence coach.