France beat England to make semis

8 October 2011 09:46 am Views - 3057

France stunned England to qualify for the semi-finals of the 2011 Rugby World Cup, where they will face Wales.

A popular notion is that France always has one good game at the World cup, and after four poor games in the first round, this proved to be true, as they pushed the English right through. England didn't help themselves either, as several attacking runs were ended by their own mistakes.

Early mistakes saw the French score two penalties through Dmitri Yachvili in the 11th and 16th minutes before Vincent Clerc and Maxime Medard capped off brilliant plays with tries -- both of which went unconverted -- as they finished the half  16-00 ahead.

England were much better in the second half, although they continued to make handling errors, with fullback Ben Foden scoring their first try, and winger Mark Cueto scored another late one, in between a Francois Trinh-Duc drop kick, as they game ended France 19 England 12.