lol....its been 5 or 6 games since we last beat australia and we beat the current world & 4nations champs as often as they beat us.......its been 21 years since france last beat us...yep thats similar records...lmao

Let's look at some facts.

Last season, England lost by 20 points away in Melbourne (with some very dodgy refs calls), and 14 points away in Wellington.

In the same year, France lost to us 60-6 in England, following on from us beating them 66-12 in Paris the year before.

We have beaten both NZ in a series and Australia in one off games in recent history. Remind me when France last beat England/GB? They didn't even win the European cup in 2010 so didn't qualify for the four nations.

Compare the two situations all you like - fact is, it's a nonsense comparison.

our record against Australia

34-14 loss, 46-16 loss, 26-16 loss, 52-4 loss, 33-10 loss, 12-23 win, 20-6 loss, 26-14 loss, 12-8 loss, 24-12 win, 4-44 loss, 18-22 loss, 20-23 loss, 12-18 loss, 64-10 loss, 20-12 win, 12-40 loss, 8-28 loss, 22-2 loss, 42-6 loss.

In the last 20 games, we have a total of 3 wins

France may not have beaten us since 1989 but i doubt we have played much more than 10 games against them since then

our last competitive game against france was 34-12, pretty similar in score to our last game against Australia (which you missed out, as it was between the two results you quoted)

I can see you're not going to be convinced, despite all the facts suggesting we are far more competitive with Oz/NZ than France are with us.

Lets agree to disagree.

You havent suggested any facts, you have simply said we are much closer.

The facts themselves suggest we arent.

I'm assuming you've ignored the times in the recent past when we have beaten France/NZ/OZ, and imagined some times where France have beaten us/Oz/NZ? Don't remember us losing to Wales recently either.

But hey, go with what you like (which seems to be that actually beating teams, or losing to them by smaller margins, doesn't suggest you're any more competitive than not beating them and losing by whopping margins).

Do you mean whopping margins like 46-16, 52-4, 44-4, 64-10 and 42-6.

We have beaten Australia more than France have beaten us, because we play Australia more than we play France. We have lost 85% of our last 20 matches against Australia, you cant get much worse.

Are you really trying to tell us that if we played France as much as Australia they'd beat us? I don't.
Who was the last team we lost to that wasn't Australia or New Zealand?


You can. 100% of the last 20 years of matches.

england have played france far more times (about twice asmany in fact) than england has played australia



technically speaking of course

Still doesn't change that 'All Star' matches should be in addition to the international programme, not replacing them. As far as I'm concerned, England should have annual games against France and Wales at the very least and also alternate between playing against Ireland and Scotland in that time.

And you say you arent arrogant or disrespectful to France

. Eventually yes, they would. They have, and they will again.
France i think.
That would be different. Not necessarily better or worse. Just different.

No, I mean whopping margins like 60-6 and 66-12 in the last 2 years (we are making this decision based upon recent results remember). In the same period, our worst loss has been by 30 points (46-16) in the final of the Four-Nations (which we reached by beating the world champions). You have to go back to 2002 to find a defeat as big as the one the French suffered at home to England - the only, albeit teeny tiny, difference being that GB had to fly to the other side of the world to play a midweek test in Sydney.



You can get worse, you can lose 100% of your matches over the same timescale, like France against us. And you could top it off by losing to Wales in a second tier tournament too.