Personal battles hold the key for England to enjoy success in Paris

Old timers bemoan the fact that under today's regulations a prop, hooker or a lock can spend an hour gaining the upper hand over his opponent then find some fresh-legged sprog galloping on to the pitch for the last 20 minutes eager to put the one small part of the rugby world to rights. All that effort in vain …

That notwithstanding, it will be the individual battles which will decide the outcome of tonight's grand slam match at St Denis and if Martin Johnson has anything to say to his team before they take the field – which appears unlikely, given the leaderless way they have played so far in this tournament – it will be that to shirk the physical confrontation will be to lose the day.

Johnson himself embodied that philosophy in his days as England's enforcer and captain, a man for whom losing a head-to-head would have led to instant retirement and lifelong shame. And Johnson has enough of the traditions of rugby within his make-up to be able to recall for his players proof that it was only by facing up to the French that any game over there could be won.

The psychological warfare starts days before the first whistle – this week it opened with Marc Lievremont, the French coach, preposterously claiming that England's hooker Dylan Hartley should have been cited for "gouging" a Scottish opponent at Murrayfield last Saturday. All Hartley was doing was pushing his foe away, albeit with a hand to the face.

The physical fun and games start, as they always have, whether France were at home at shabby old Stade Colombes, the concrete car-park of Parc des Princes or the nouveau riche Stade de France, in the tunnel.

There, a yard apart as they wait to take the field, the two teams, totally hyped, unshaven for a week, ready to run through brick walls, eye-ball each other, match snarl for snarl, insult for insult (bad language has a common vocabulary) and no one will back off.

It is the prelude to the main show but it is a part of the performance, unseen by the paying public, that will set the tone for the evening's entertainment. None of the face-offs tonight will be more important than those involving the monster centres, Mike Tindall in white and Mathieu Bastareaud in blue, or the respective No 8s, Nick Easter and Imanol Harinordoquy. Those two battles will go some way to deciding the outcome.

We will also see tonight whether Lewis Moody, England's stand-in captain and a more dynamic individual than the injured Steve Borthwick, has it in him to offer leadership qualities to match some of his predecessors, not least the great Bill Beaumont.

It was Beaumont who inspired England to a seminal victory in Paris 30 years ago.

It had been a rugby generation since England had last enjoyed success in the old city – 1964, when men like Budge Rogers, Mike Phillips and Michael Weston were in their pomp – but Beaumont had done his homework.

His selectors had also been reading up on the history. They knew that to beat a French team led by Jean-Pierre Rives and including hard-cases like Robert Paparemborde, Philippe Dintrans and Jean-Luc Joinel in their pack England would have to apply themselves to every punch and provocation.

To ensure they did, Beaumont took into battle with him a heavy gang made up of Fran Cotton, Peter Wheeler, Phil Blakeway, Roger Uttley, Tony Neary, John Scott and, not least, Maurice Colclough.

They would not have sent Girls Aloud into paroxysms of lust but they would not take a backwards step no matter who the foe and in Colclough, the Liverpudlian extrovert who was playing his club rugby with Angouleme, they had a rather large secret weapon, one whose ability to speak the lingo enabled England to decipher a few of the French calls early in the game.

With Beaumont, as ever, leading from the front, England came back from an early concession – Rives crossed after just two minutes – and opened a 17-7 lead with tries from Nick Preston and John Carleton, a penalty from Dusty Hare and two

drop-goals from John Horton.

France stormed back in the final quarter with Jerome Gallion going close and – from that rarity in those days, a scrum heel against the head on England's put-in – Jean-Luc Averous handed off Carleton to score and close the gap but Beaumont's hard men stuck it out for a 17-13 victory which kept them on course for a grand slam of their own.

It will be France with their sights on the "chlem" tonight but if Martin Johnson and his back-up team have given England the Henry V build-up – including lots of videos from the days when Beaumont, Will Carling and Johnson himself led raids on Paris which often ended in victory and riotous parties – they can produce a performance which gives their long-suffering (and deep-pocketed) supporters reason to smile.

They will be entitled to enjoy their night out at the Folies Bergeres, the Moulin Rouge or wherever, as Beaumont and his men did in 1980. We can only hope they do not then follow the example set by the eternal prankster Colclough two years later in Paris when England were celebrating a 27-15 victory.

Colclough slyly nipped to the loo and emptied the bottle of after-shave, given to each England player at the post-match dinner, as a gesture of goodwill and filled it with water. He returned to the table, proceeded to drink the contents in front of prop Colin Smart and, telling what a buzz it gave him, urged him to do the same.

Smart – perhaps not the most aptly named of gentlemen – promptly followed suit, drank the after-shave, collapsed in agony and spent the night in hospital. Colclough could not stop laughing.

We have not had a lot to celebrate watching England of late; perhaps we might raise a glass – bubbly rather than after-shave- following tonight's heavyweight collision.

Paris match: Who was there

The line-ups on February 2 1980 when England beat France 17-13 in Paris

France

S Gabernet (Toulouse);

D Bustaffa (Carcassonne),

R Bertranne (Bagneres),

D Cordorniou (Narbonne),

J-L Averous (La Voulte);

A Causade (Lourdes),

J Gallion (Toulon); P Salas (Narbonne), P Dintrans (Tarbes), R Paparemborde (Pau), Y Duhard (Bagneres), A Maleig (Oloron), J-P Rives (Toulouse), M Carpentier (Loudes), J-L Joinel (Brive).

England

W Hare (Leicester);

J Carleton (Orrell),

C Woodward (Leicester),

N Preston (Richmond),

M Slemen (Liverpool);

J Horton (Bath), S Smith (Sale); F Cotton (Sale),

P Wheeler (Leicester),

P Blakeway (Gloucester),

W Beaumont (Fylde),

M Colclough (Angouleme),

R Uttley (Wasps), A Neary (Broughton Park), J Scott (Cardiff).

Referee: C Norling (Wales).