Six Nations

It was not pretty, but it was deserved. At a very wet Stade de France, in Paris, on Saturday France edged England 12-10 to win their first Six Nations Grand Slam in six years.

In a game in which the only try was scored by a very committed England side, the French had to rely on three Morgan Parra penalties and a François Trinh-Duc drop-goal.

While the French will sing and celebrate late into the night - having now beaten the best of the Southern and Northern Hemisphere in the past 12 months - England will also be able to take heart from the game.

It was, by some margin, the best performance by an England team since Martin Johnson took over as manager.

And the try scored by young fullback Ben Foden showed they can discard their stodgy approach which has been so prevalent under the Johnson reign.

However, for now the spotlight will be on a French team that dominated the Six Nations and thoroughly deserved their Grand Slam - victory over all-comers in the competition.

The scorers:

For France:
Pens: Parra 3
DG: Trinh-Duc

For England:
Try: Foden
Con: Flood
Pen: Wilkinson

Teams:

France: 15 Clement Poitrenaud, 14 Marc Andreu, 13 Mathieu Bastareaud, 12 Yannick Jauzion, 11 Alexis Palisson, 10 François Trinh-Duc, 9 Morgan Parra, 8 Imanol Harinordoquy, 7 Julien Bonnaire, 6 Thierry Dusautoir (captain), 5 Julien Pierre, 4 Lionel Nallet, 3 Nicolas Mas, 2 William Servat, 1 Thomas Domingo
Replacements: 16 Dimitri Szarzewski, 17 Jean-Baptiste Poux, 18 Sébastien Chabal, 19 Alexandre Lapandry, 20 Dimitri Yachvili, 21 David Marty, 22 Julien Malzieu

England: 15 Ben Foden, 14 Mark Cueto, 13 Mike Tindall, 12 Riki Flutey, 11 Chris Ashton, 10 Toby Flood, 9 Danny Care, 8 Nick Easter, 7 Lewis Moody (captain), 6 Joe Worsley, 5 Louis Deacon, 4 Simon Shaw, 3 Dan Cole, 2 Dylan Hartley, 1 Tim Payne
Replacements: 16 Steve Thompson, 17 David Wilson, 18 Tom Palmer, 19 James Haskell, 20 Ben Youngs, 21 Jonny Wilkinson, 22 Mathew Tait

Referee: Bryce Lawrence (New Zealand)
Assistant referees: Alain Rolland (Ireland), Simon McDowell (Ireland)
TMO: Nigel Whitehouse (Wales)