France and England took starkly contrasting routes on Sunday into a World Cup semi-final clash that will give the winner a shot at becoming the first northern hemisphere side to win the William Webb Ellis Cup.
The Six Nations aristocrats meet in Sydney next Sunday with reigning world champions Australia taking on New Zealand in the same city the previous day to decide who represents the south.
France made it through with a surprisingly easy 43-21 win over a disappointing Ireland.
England then were given an almighty shock by wonderful Wales, trailing 3-10 at half-time and badly rattled before dusting themselves down to claw their way back to a 28-17 win.
It meant that the top four ranking teams in the world were in the semifinals setting up renewals of two rugby classics steeped in decades of history.
France got on top of Ireland from the first exchanges smothering the Irish attacks with blanket defence and ripping them apart with their talented runners.
The French were 27-0 up at half-time effectively putting the game away and although they lost some of their composure and discipline in the second half, Ireland never looked like closing the gap.
The win left the usually intense Laporte beaming with confidence.
”We are here to win the World Cup and I think we can win it,” he said. ”We will give all we have to give in the semifinals.”
England, like New Zealand last week, took an early lead only for Wales to tear them apart with the kind of attacking rugby usually associated with the Barbarians.
Coach Clive Woodward rang the changes at half-time introducing Mike Catt for the shell-shocked Dan Luger as they risked being on the receiving end of the biggest upset in World Cup history.
And it paid dividends four minutes later as Jason Robinson produced a moment of pure magic through the heart of the Welsh defence to send Will Greenwood into the corner for the tieing try.
Jonny Wilkinson’s boot then put the Welsh out of range with five straight penalties that another late Welsh try could not undo.
Woodward said some ”pretty harsh” words had been said in the dressing room at half-time. ”But we got the job done.”
”But if we play like that today against France, we’ve got no chance so we’ve got to up the ante.”
While honours have been even between France and England over the last decade, the English have had by far the best of the three head-to-heads this year.
They comfortably dethroned France as Six Nations Grand Slammers at Twickenham in February and then looked a class above in home-and-away warmup games in the summer notably in a 45-14 win at Twickenham.
But France coach Bernard Laporte made a couple of key changes, worked his squad hard in the leadup to the tournament and reaped the rewards as soon as the side got going in Australia.
The sides have met twice before in the World Cup, England winning a 1991 quarterfinal 19-10 and France winning the 1995 third-place play-off 19-9. Neither team has gone all the way. – Sapa-AFP