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France XV 35-19 England: Visitors well beaten in Vannes warm-up
England’s very first attack delivered a sublime try for Murley as Seb Atkinson ran hard, pulled a pass out the back and accurate work from Harry Randall and Caluori transferred wide for the Harlequins man to hold off the covering Theo Attisogbe and get in at the corner.
That slick first-phase score arrived inside 50 seconds.
France got a grip on much of the rest of the first half.
England hooker Theo Dan had already managed to deny Esteban Capilla, ripping the ball loose over the tryline, before Nicolas Depoortere, playing for the first time since dislocating his shoulder in the Six Nations defeat by Scotland in March, barged over on eight minutes.
The lively Gregoire Arfeuil followed soon after, gliding onto Yoram Moefana’s neat inside ball to give France a 14-5 lead.
England’s attempts to fight back were undermined by understandable handling errors from a make-shift side, also lacking mainstays such as Maro Itoje, Ben Earl, Ollie Chessum, Ben Spencer and Joe Heyes, in their first match of the summer.
Despite that there were promising combinations between Max Ojomoh and Murley in wide channels and full-back Marcus Smith dovetailed nicely with fly-half George Ford, stepping in to first receiver at times.
And on the stroke of half-time, another first-phase strike move delivered with Caluori in off his wing to put Smith into a hole. Smith stepped off his left foot, leaving the cover defence behind, and went in under the posts to take his team down the tunnel just two points adrift at 14-12.
But France’s determination not to die with the ball and daring to run it from deep paid off after the break.
Scrum-half Nolann Le Garrec, playing at his boyhood club, scampered over for a hugely popular score before Antoine Hastoy wormed over at the end of another sweeping move that England could never pin down.
Caluori had a try wiped off from a knock-on by replacement hooker Jamie Blamire, but England couldn’t get a real toehold as they toiled at the set-piece.
A horrible defensive lapse allowed Baptiste Jauneau to tap-and-go through the heart of where the visiting defence should be and put fellow replacement Fabien Brau-Boirie under the posts for a 33-12 lead with two minutes to go.
England rallied too little, too late, with Ojomoh going in from a smart, flat mis-pass from captain Ford in the final play of the match.
France: Attissogbe; Ambadiang, Depoortere, Moefana, Arfeuil; Hastoy, Le Garrec; Poirot, Lamothe, Falatea, Guillard (c), Staniforth, Matiu, Capilla, Gazzotti
Replacements: Massa, Wardi, Montagne, Palu, Tixeront, Jauneau, Desperes, Brau-Boirie
England XV: M Smith; Caluori, Ojomoh, S Atkinson, Murley; Ford, Randall; Opoku-Fordjour, Dan, Kloska, Ewels, Martin, Hill, Curry, Dombrandt.
Replacements: Blamire, Obano, Sela, Isiekwe, Kenningham, Quirke, Janse van Rensburg, Radwan.
The statistics are not a surprise to Umar Ali, who plays for Route One Rovers – a semi-professional team in Bradford.
During Ramadan last year, he was racially abused by a group of opposition spectators as he was waiting to come on as a substitute.
“It was our first game playing while we were fasting,” he said. “So obviously we were hungry that day and I was a bit less patient.
“Then when I was getting ready to come on, one of the fans said I should shave my beard off and that I looked like a paedophile.
“One of them picked up a child who was about six, seven years old, and said ‘I bet your wife’s the same age as this child’.”
Umar described the men as in their sixties.
“It’s quite distressing, because they’re older than my dad,” he added. “They’re my grandad’s age, and they felt comfortable enough to stand there and make comments like that.”
Umar said the assistant referee heard the comments and told the referee, who he claims did not take any action.
The police were eventually contacted and the spectators identified. Umar has not been informed of an outcome.
His manager Mohammed Patel was in the dugout during the match and said – while the opposition coaching staff apologised on behalf of their fans – he felt the officials fell short and should have removed those spectators shouting racist and Islamophobic abuse at his players.
Patel said: “It was a really emotional day for us, because the question we asked ourselves after that game is ‘Why is it still happening?’ Some of the things that were said were absolutely horrific.
“In my opinion, more needs to be done from the top down. We’re actively engaging and working with local FAs to try and navigate this problem, but it absolutely needs to be mandated.”
The Northern Counties East Football League fined the opposition club £300 and gave them nine disciplinary points. But Patel says that does not address the real problem.
“We’ve seen harsher punishments for violent conduct on the pitch or red cards, even administrative mistakes,” he added.
“Something as serious as this, we were absolutely not happy with the result.”
Patel has been lobbying the Football Association, but has not yet received a response.
He said: “Precedents need to be set, harsher sanctions need to be introduced. This comes from the top down.”
The FA said in a statement: “We have introduced tougher sanctions for clubs and individuals, a new behaviour improvement programme, and penalty points accumulation charges in the grassroots game.
“This builds on the steps taken to allow for deductions of league points from clubs that are repeated offenders of serious misconduct.”
Gymnast Ruby Evans has won Wales’ first Commonwealth Games gold in Glasgow with victory in the floor final.
Evans, 19, performed the final routine of the women’s programme and defeated England’s Abigail Martin into silver, with her team-mate Shantae-Eve Amankwaah securing bronze.
Evans left the arena in tears on Sunday after her disappointing sixth in the all-round individual competition, that after Wales finished fourth in the team event.
Now, after Welsh identical twins Abigail and Emily Roper won bronze medals within a couple of hours of each other on Monday, Evans has delivered gold.
It was the first victory for Team Wales in Scotland and a ninth medal alongside two silver and six bronze.
There is also a guaranteed podium position for boxer Connor Williams after he reached the semi-finals.
An amateur cricket match has made global headlines after a fielder was accused of cheating by clicking his fingers to get a wicket.
The North Yorkshire and South Durham Cricket League has started an investigation into a second XI Division 2 game between Saltburn and Norton.
A viral video on social media appears to show a Saltburn fielder clicking his fingers as the ball passes Noman Shabir’s bat before being caught by wicketkeeper Josh Bowes. Saltburn appeal and the umpire gives Shabir out.
It has been suggested that the finger-clicking was designed to trick the umpire into thinking the batter edged the ball.
Saltburn won by 159 runs and are top of Division 2 by 17 points.
“The league have received a formal complaint regarding alleged incidents in a Division Two game on Saturday,” the league said in a statement on X.
“A full investigation has been initiated and until such time as the formal processes are complete no further comment will be made.”
Last week Bowes took eight catches in Saltburn’s 22-run win over Shildon Railway. The men’s Test record for catches by a keeper in an innings is seven.
Bowes leads the league standings with 31 catches, 10 more than any other player.
Rory Cotterill, who captained Middlesbrough second XI during a 29-run defeat by Saltburn last month, responded to a social media post containing the video and alleged two further incidents of cheating by Saltburn in that match.
The original video of the incident has had more than three million views on X, with publications in Australia and New Zealand among those to report it.
The BBC has contacted the league and Saltburn. Norton declined to comment.
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