France close in on Grand Slam as England slip up

France are set fair for their first Grand Slam for six years following round three of the Six Nations. Their efficient if unexciting display in beating Wales 26-20 in Cardiff on Friday night was their third win of the tournament, and with Italy and England to come – both in Paris – the form book suggest they'll make it a clean  sweep.

England's hopes of arriving in Paris on March 20 for a Grand Slam showdown with the French were dashed by a clinical Ireland performance at Twickenham. England dominated possession but did little worthwhile with the ball. Their solitary try of the rainy afternoon came from a drive from prop Dan Cole (their best player on the day). Ireland, on the other hand, created three try-scoring opportunities and finished each one, with wingers Tommy Bowe (two) and Keith Earls sharing the tries in the 20-16 victory.  

England manager Martin Johnson described the result as a "tough, tough loss," adding: "I thought the guys played very well. They got themselves back into the game and got themselves ahead. It was a tough game, either team could have won it."

Johnson is right - England played quite well. It's simply that this England team isn't good enough. The side that won the 2003 World Cup contained seven or eight players who would have walked into any putative World XV; none of the current England squad would come close to such an honour.

Fly-half Jonny Wilkinson had another hit and miss day, dropping the goal on 70 minutes that gave England a 16-13 lead, and then three minutes later missing the tackle that allowed Bowe to skip across the English try-line for the winning score. But Wilkinson wasn't the only Englishman to mix the good with the bad. Scrum-half Danny Care created two tries – one for England, with a delightful break that ultimately ended with Cole burrowing his way over, and one for Ireland, with a wild piece of indiscipline that led to an Ireland penalty from which Earls scored his try.

In the way that modern sportsmen do, Johnson promised to take positives from the defeat. "We will be better for the game," he declared afterwards. "I said to the players they have to keep that horrible feeling inside of them for two weeks and release it at Murrayfield. We come back to play Scotland, who will be playing that game to save their Championship."

For Scotland the weekend was an unmitigated disaster. Going to Rome to play Italy in the unofficial Battle of the Wooden Spoon, the Scots failed to rise to the challenge and slumped to a 16-12 defeat.  Pablo Canavosio scored the only try of the game to give Italy their seventh victory in ten years of Six Nations rugby. "It's a massive win for us, the team deserved to win," said second row Marco Bortolami. "We fight hard every week against better teams. We didn't make any mistakes, we showed we can beat anyone, our defence was so good today. It's a major win for Italy."

Italy have played well this championship. They were slow out of the blocks against Ireland on the opening weekend, but came close to defeating England a fortnight ago and fully deserved to beat Scotland. If they won their next match they really would be on the up – but to do so they'll have to pull off one of the biggest shocks in the tournament's 100-year history.

Not only have Italy never beaten France in Paris, they've never come close, and when the two sides meet in a fortnight, the home side will be red-hot favourites. This current French side lack the flair of their predecessors, but they have a suffocating defence and a strongarm set of forwards that overpowered Wales in Cardiff. True, the Welsh didn't help themselves by gifting the French two interception tries, but France were so dominant in the scrum and line-out that the dangerous Welsh backs were living off scraps for most of the game.

They showed resilience to come back with second-half tries from Leigh Halfpenny and Shane Williams (whose 19th try in the Six Nations created a new Welsh record, surpassing Gareth Edwards' tally of 18), but France were playing within themselves. Like Johnson, Wales' coach Warren Gatland did his best to look on the bright side, saying: "We could have thrown in the towel at half-time but we played some fantastic rugby in the second half and showed some great character and put ourselves in a position to win the game. That was the most positive aspect I will take out of today's game." In the end though, Gatland was left to rue the fact that Wales "pushed the self-destruct button and gave away a couple of intercept passes". ·