In that case they are executing perfectly.
Although I would argue that, in both cases, England was the better team on the day. This is evidenced by the fact that they won.
You may say "ah, but France would have been out of sight at half time if they hadn't dropped some critical passes". I would say that catching a ball thrown at you while running at speed is a fundamental part of the game and, if you can't do that, you do not deserve to win. Similarly, it is no secret that kicking the ball between the posts to score penalties in an important source of points and, when you fail to do that, you may find yourself losing.
Have to say that England's position would have looked very, very different if their last two matches had not resulted in grasping victory (or holding on due to a missed conversation in the case of the Scotland game). However their last two games should be very winnable, which could mean they end up second which would be a good result.
As an aside - one of the (many) things which frustrates me about the 6 nations is the stop/start approach to fixtures. You get two weekends worth of games, then it stope for two weeks, then one more game, and then another two week pause. By the time England play Italy on 9th March they will have played just one match in over a month! So you lose momentum (and frankly interest) in the tournament.
Surely it would be much better to play it over five consecutive weekends. And before people start bleating on about the need for breaks and rugby being a tough game, if NH sides want to aspire to do well in the world cup they need to be able to play every week for five weeks. Let's make the formatting of the 6 nations help them prepare.
