Clerc’s try

UNLIKE other Frenchmen, Vincent Clerc has a liking for the English – in particular the music of Radiohead and Coldplay which, latterly, he has taken to playing on the piano. Every sportsman needs his escape.

Until the World Cup, Clerc, the most deadly French fi nisher of his generation, had unwittingly taken his appreciation of the northern neighbours with him on to the rugby fi eld.

In six starts against the country his team- mate Aurelien Rougerie described this week as “our greatest enemy”, he had never savoured the singular pleasure of touching the ball down.

It was a strange omission for a player who piles up tries in much the same way as Mexican magnate Carlos Slim – top of the Forbes rich list for the third year running – does dollars.

Then, 21 minutes into the World Cup quarter- fi nal, everything changed. Clerc split the defence apart to score a try which put France on their way to victory and set in motion a cataclysm in English rugby.

Had he not done so, had England somehow scraped their way into a World Cup semi- fi nal, the subsequent toxic fall- out may have been contained and it may have been Martin Johnson bringing his dwarf- tossing old lags across the Channel on Sunday.

But on such moments history swivels. For France, staring at their own Waterloo, it turned their tournament.

“I don’t have a favourite try but that one is amongst the favourites,” said Clerc. “It’s not just about the opponent, it’s about the atmosphere and the state of the match. There was a lot of emotion involved in