England’s attitude to tomorrow’s (Saturday) clash with France has been summed up in six words by coach Brian McDermott: “Eyes up, chest out, let’s go.”

His side’s World Cup semi-final hopes are hanging by a thread following last week’s 30-12 loss to Tonga, but McDermott is refusing to give up hope. He insisted: “There’s still a slim chance we get through. That’s something we are focusing on and we remain determined.”

Despite the result of his first match in charge, McDermott was happy with the performance and stressed: “We want to repeat the way we started against Tonga. I thought for large parts it was a high quality game and we stayed with that and more than matched Tonga. Of course we had some lost possession and certainly for the last 15 minutes we seemed to lose our way a bit.

“That probably spoiled my opinion of the game, but when I went back and reviewed it I was very impressed with what we did. We had some really good flow in attack and some good connection defensively. We are playing a different team this week, but we’ve got to repeat that start.”

Tomorrow’s opponents are on the back of a 78-4 drubbing by Samoa in their opener and McDermott, who’ll field the same 19 players, warned: “France will be improved, there’s no doubt. There’s a few things we’ve got to be aware of, but it comes down to getting yourselves back up for an international game and facing a very determined France. We are focusing on that.”

Though points difference could be the deciding factor at the end of the group stage, that doesn’t figure in England’s game plan. “We need to win first - we want to win the game,” the gaffer emphasised.

“We are aware if we are going to go through we have to win big, but I don’t think any coach is ever thinking about winning big. I think most coaches are just thinking about going into the game and nailing the start.

“That’s what we intend to do. We don’t have a strategy for when we get 30 or 40 or 50 points in front, we aren’t talking like that. We are talking about handling the early stages of the game against France and let’s get our game right.”