England clinch Grand Slam with polished win over ragged France

Having landed the Six Nations title and triple crown with a 25-21 win over Wales at Twickenham last week, England were never really in danger in outclassing a French side who performed better than their 29-18 defeat in Scotland six days ago, but were still relatively mediocre in finishing second bottom of the Six Nations table.

The win in Paris completed a glorious first campaign for Australian coach Eddie Jones, who succeeded the sacked Stuart Lancaster after England were embarrassingly knocked out of the World Cup as the host nation at the group stage back in October.

England captain Dylan Hartley was stretchered off in 67 minutes after suffering a heavy blow to the head after accidently crashing into the knee of Uini Atonio, but was given the all-clear to rejoin the rest of his team-mates for the celebrations at the end of the match when he was presented with the trophy as England finished the season as European champions.

Hartley - later named man of the match - becomes the first man to captain a Grand Slam-winning England side, the 13th in the country's rich history in the Six Nations, since former coach Martin Johnson managed the feat 13 years ago.

It was the same year that England won the World Cup in Australia.

Their next major assignment is the tour of Australia in the summer with the first match of a three-match Test series against last year's World Cup finalists on June 11 in Brisbane followed by a meeting in Melbourne on June 18 and the final Test on June 25 in Sydney.

"I am very proud of the boys," said coach Jones.

"I thought in the first half we sat back a little bit, and were probably more worried about the result than playing, and the second half we were much more positive in the way we played."

They will be buoyed by their performance in Paris. England were always superior, and enjoyed a 17-12 lead at half-time courtesy of tries from Danny Care and Dan Cole with Maxime Machenaud managing to keep the home side in touch via four penalties in an overall total of seven.

Despite plenty of honest effort, France would not breach the English try-line as Anthony Watson bounded over for another try before two more Owen Farrell pens - to go with two penalties and two conversions in the first half - completed the task.

Coming only six months after England's humiliation at their own World Cup, it felt like a minor miracle.