England grasped their first and last proper chance of match preparation before their opening World Cup game against Papua New Guinea on October 25 in the steamy heat of Townsville, Australia, with a slick, confident and far easier than expected victory on a suitably sultry evening in southwest France.

It would be wrong to read too much into last night’s ten-try romp at Stade Ernest Wallon in terms of a World Cup that is four months away, but the impression of England starting where Great Britain left off from their 3-0 series whitewash of New Zealand was hard to resist. France were competitive for 40 minutes, but fell away as Tony Smith’s side rediscovered the cutting edge that left the Kiwis in tatters last autumn.

France had no retort to Leon Pryce’s teasing and tormenting of them. The stand-off had a field day, James Roby also had an armchair ride in directing operations from dummy half and Martin Gleeson’s soft-shoe shuffle for a quickfire brace of tries, in killing off the French midway through the second half and taking his tally to three, emphasised the gulf in class in terms of the respective back lines. “That performance was no mistake,” Smith said. “It was a professional build-up all week and a job well done. Hopefully we’ll carry that momentum and self-belief through to the World Cup.”

There were signs in the first half of the competitive intensity that this fixture now demands with the rise and rise of Catalans and nine Dragons on duty for the home side. With Thomas Bosc and Julien Rinaldi ably steering Les Tricolores early on, it took James Wynne, the Australian-born scrum half, seven minutes to cut in for their first and last try of a long night.

With ball in hand, England’s combinations gradually began to click. As well as the three tries they took with aplomb before the break, three more were ruled out by the video referee. Ade Gardner, the wing, and Peter Fox, the Hull Kingston Rovers player and England’s one new international cap on the other flank, were denied, while Sam Burgess was penalised for suspected double movement, but the signs were there.

Adrian Morley blasted a hole and Kevin Sinfield and Roby subtly picked up the pace in unleashing the long-striding Pryce for the first try and was swiftly followed by Gleeson carving his way over via the swift hands at half back of Rob Burrow and Pryce and Paul Wellens chiming into the line from full back.

Bosc’s penalty brought France back to within two points and Pryce atoned for having his clearance kick charged down in scrambling back to make a trysaving tackle on Remi Casty. But England were never less than menacing within sight of France’s posts and alert switch play between Jon Wilkin and Sinfield engineered a gap for Maurie Fa’asavalu in an unfeasibly long ten minutes of added time.

Sinfield’s conversion stretched the lead to 16-8 and the game was over as a contest within 13 minutes of the resumption. Senior was selfless in furnishing Fox with a debut try when it arguably would have been easier for him to touch down. But the veteran centre quickly added his name to the scorers after Jamie Peacock’s offload, Burrow’s little dart and Pryce’s sumptuous inside ball.

Gleeson’s clever footwork bamboozled Cyril Stacul for the centre’s two further tries in six minutes. He then cut against the grain of France’s increasingly bewildered defence and the home side were all at sea in a hapless last 15 minutes, as Wilkin levered himself across the line, Sinfield put Danny McGuire over and Wellens grabbed a deserved try.

—Four tries in ten minutes either side of half-time helped Wigan Warriors to a morale-boosting 38-20 victory over Harlequins in the engage Super League at the JJB Stadium last night. The Warriors trailed 16-6 before Pat Richards and Joel Tomkins added to Mickey Higham’s try to lead 18-16 at half-time, and Wigan ran in further tries in the second half from Gareth Hock, Darrell Goulding, with two, and Thomas Leuluai.