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Tony Smith says England have to keep playing France despite repeated thrashings

Tony Smith knows all about coaching England taking charge of them in 2007 and guiding them to the World Cup semi-finals in 2008.

The current Hull FC boss is therefore well placed to give his opinion of England’s win over France as he spoke on Sky Sports.

He said: “You go out there looking for effort and you nail your execution and everything comes off. Sometimes things just work like that and good combinations and good coaching comes together and you get a win like today.”

However, he felt for France and said that it is vitally important that they keep testing themselves against England to improve.

“You’ve got to continue playing these games,” he added on Sky Sports.

“They have to help themselves soon and go to themselves ‘we have to stop this from happening year on year’ and hopefully they get that message back there and get that development more and more.

“There are good things happening but they need to speed things up also and the best way of doing that is by playing these games.

“If we really want to have a Northern Hemisphere team to compete against, we need to help them along, we have to nurture them.”

It is expected that this game will become a common occurrence under IMG which will certainly help French rugby going forward.

As will the 2025 World Cup being held in France.

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