ENGLAND extended their winning run against France to 23 matches with a comfortable 40-8 victory at Stade Ernest-Wallon in Toulouse.

In the absence of head coach Shaun Wane, recovering from ankle surgery, England hit back after France had taken a surprise early lead to score eight tries and remain unbeaten against France since 1981.

The winning margin would have been bigger had Wigan half-back Harry Smith not missed four of his eight conversion attempts, but England were made to work harder than the scoreline suggests.

France stunned the visitors by taking a third-minute lead when Fouad Yaha raced on to Arthur Mourgue’s bouncing kick to score a converted try in the corner.

England struggled to get going and when Mourgue converted a 20th-minute penalty to put France 8-0 up, Wane’s side had not created a scoring chance.

But that changed shortly afterwards as England clicked into gear to run in four tries in just over 10 minutes to turn their deficit into an 18-8 half-time advantage.

Jack Welsby touched down in the corner, Ash Handley finished off two moves out wide on the right and opposite wing Tom Johnstone also went over, with Smith landing only one of his first four conversion attempts.

England were forced to defend for the first 20 minutes after the restart before Matty Nicholson ran on to Smith’s clever kick to score, with Welsby going over for his second try five minutes later.

Smith converted the latter and landed two more after captain George Williams had darted over and Johnstone scored his second try to complete the scoring.

Both England’s men and women faced France on Saturday as part of French rugby league’s 90th anniversary celebrations.

England are next in action when they face Samoa in a two-Test series, the first at Wigan on October 27 and the second at Headingley the following Saturday.