‘There wasn’t any hesitation’ – England’s heroes lift lid on ‘brave’ match-winning moment after their night of redemption
England celebrate Elliot Daly's match-winning try against France in 2025 Six Nations and Daly with fellow scorer Tommy Freeman.
Elliot Daly has lifted the lid on the match-winning try which broke French hearts and catapulted England back into Six Nations title contention.
Supersub Daly was sent on by coach Steve Borthwick as a final roll of the dice with England trailing by six points and four minutes from their seventh loss in eight games.
The Saracens star responded with the last-gasp try which evoked memories of him doing the same thing to beat Wales in Cardiff in 2017.
On that occasion it was a fluffed clearance which allowed George Ford and Owen Farrell to move the ball wide for the Croydon-born speedster to apply the killer finish.
Almost the same old story for England
This time England had to do it all for themselves, create the attacking platform after France were penalised with the clock winding down inexorably towards another painful Red Rose post-mortem.
England looked like they had blown another winning position to add to a list now running to a second page. There was every reason to think they would not be thinking clearly.
Borthwick later revealed he had urged his players beforehand to keep believing in themselves no matter what. “I don’t know how many times I’ve said how much trust, faith and confidence I have in this group of players,” he said. “How good I think they can be.”
So it was that Fin Smith, a 22-year old making his first England start at fly-half, felt empowered to kick to the corner, then choose the play that would send an 82,000 crowd into raptures.
“Fin called it and everyone was pretty decisive when it was called,” said Tommy Freeman, scorer of the second of three earlier tries. “There wasn’t any hesitation.”
Taking up the story, Daly said: “In that moment we were all on the same page, which is what we needed to be, and pretty calm.
“We had a certain set of moves that we do and a couple of calls for them and then we just go with the one we feel in that moment.
“If the lineout went forward and it was going strong, I probably would have joined it with Tommy. We probably would have been out. The way it went, it went forward and kind of stopped and the ref said ‘use it’.
“We had some kind of maul didn’t we? I thought we were going to score from that, but luckily I didn’t join it in the end.
“I was looking down the short side with Mitch [Alex Mitchell], I thought there was a two-on-one there. Then Fin called the call for the play and that was it. He straightened nicely and put me through a big hole.
“He’s brilliant to be brave enough in the final seconds. That is why we won the game.”
Bench impact
That, and the formidable contribution of England’s resurgent bench. In Dublin its only resemblance to a ‘bomb squad’ was that its ineffectiveness exploded any chance England had of winning.
This could not have been more different. Jamie George, appearing in a cameo role for the first time since losing the captaincy, was inch-perfect with his lineout delivery.
Ollie Chessum, a 62nd minute replacement for Leicester club mate George Martin, caught the ball securely under intense pressure, allowing George to rumble forward with it at the back of the maul.
As the drive came to a standstill Mitchell fed Ollie Lawrence, standing at first receiver. He shaped to feed Freeman, running hard and straight on his outside shoulder, but instead passed out the back to Smith.
Daly, meanwhile, was careering infield off his left wing. Smith knew he was coming, took the ball to the line and delayed the pass beautifully so that he would take it in his stride. That achieved, not even Antoine Dupont could deny him.
Smith still had to slot the conversion; the same player who had been charged down on his first play of the game. Nervelessly, he delivered.
“Fin is a guy who is young but has a wise head on him,” said Freeman. “We knew he was going to recover from that. Things like that don’t really faze him to be honest. He backs his gameplan and we all do too.”
It is clear to see why. Next at Twickenham are Scotland; Scotland the Brave, as they say north of the Border. They will do well to be braver than England were on this night of redemption.
