Elliot Daly insists England can continue their push for the Guinness Six Nations title emboldened by a victory over France that rewarded their refusal to be beaten.
Daly's final-minute try, combined with Fin Smith’s conversion, sealed a dramatic 26-25 triumph at Twickenham Stadium that has given England lift-off after they opened the tournament with defeat in Dublin.
Head coach Steve Borthwick had urged his players to keep aiming to score tries when the pressure is on and they responded with Fin Baxter and Daly going over in a final 10 minutes that saw the lead change hands three times.
England have been unable to close out winning positions for most of the last year, losing seven successive matches against top-tier opposition in the process.
Daly believes that getting over the line against France serves as validation of who they are as a team.
"You want to go and win every single game and obviously we have been on the wrong side of results in the last couple of games. Now we know we are a good team," Daly said.
"We knew we were a good team before but you need to win those big games to prove you are a good team.
"Sometimes you have to go through those games where you don’t get the rub of the green. You have games of rugby like that, especially at Test level.
"Against France, whatever happened, it was like – pardon my French – 'f*** that, on to the next thing’.
"That mindset we showed will put us in great stead, especially in the last 20 minutes when we were chasing it and scored, and then chased it again. It allowed us to be free and brave with the ball.
"But there are still things to work on, which is brilliant. If you have the perfect game it’s very hard to go to next week and say, ‘we’ll just do the same thing again’ as there’s no real focal point for it.
"There are still things we can tidy up, so we’ll go after them, hopefully get better in those aspects and get a better result."
England will take another stride towards featuring in the title mix come the final weekend if they dispatch Scotland, beaten by Ireland on Sunday, at Twickenham in round three with fixtures against Italy and Wales closing out their Six Nations.
Recent history points against a home win given Scotland have won the last four meetings and Daly knows a tough afternoon awaits.
"You’ve got to win your home games in this tournament and we’ve got two more at home in this competition – that will put us in good stead," Daly said.
"We haven’t beaten Scotland in the past four times, so we want to make sure we’re ready for them coming down here and try to get a result.
"They’re a good team. Every time we’ve played them recently they’ve caused us a few issues. We know they’re a very well drilled team under (head coach) Gregor Townsend.
"And the way Finn Russell puts people around the park is different to other 10s you play against. You’ve got to be constantly on and it’s a game we’re looking forward to."
Meanwhile, France head coach Fabien Galthie (above) said: "We missed may chances in the first half but at 7-7 at the break we thought we just had to play the same way and just be more precise.
"The conditions were humid but it was playable. And we found space, so after that there was no reason for us not to score."
"We lost this game in the first half," full-back Thomas Ramos said.
"When you miss so many scoring chances, they keep hope and then they kill you in the end."
Ramos, however, remained optimistic about France's chances of winning the championship ahead of trips to Italy and Ireland and a home game against Scotland.
"When you have the ambitions to win the Six Nations and lose your first away game, it hurts. But we can still win our last three matches and claim the title," he said.
Captain and scrum-half Antoine Dupont, who was paired with the hugely disappointing Matthieu Jalibert in the absence of suspended Romain Ntamack, agreed.
"We wasted way too many opportunities," he said. "We should score at least three times in the first half. We put them in danger but did not convert."
Watch Munster v Scarlets in the URC on Saturday from 4.45pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player
Additional reporting: Reuters
