GAULDEN BOOT

Farrell discovers extra mojo to get edge over French

FAZ JOB DONE.. Skipper Farrell lifts the trophy despite a patchy display

OWEN FARRELL kicked an extra-time penalty to spare England’s blushes and win the Autumn Nations Cup.

An extraordinary afternoon at Twickenham brought the return of fans and rugby drama for the first time this autumn.

The lucky 2,000 saw England emerge victorious rie from a final for the first time since Jonny Wilkinson dropped the goal that won the World Cup in 2003.

But only after a climax draining enough for the 400 NHS staff invited to the game to think they were on a busman’s holiday.

England trailed 19-12 with time all but up in a game dominated by France despite them fielding a second team with less than a 10th of their opposition’s experience. The Six Nations champions got out of jail only by playing their lineout-maul trump card on the last play of the match and delivering super sub Luke Cowan-Dickie over the try line.

Farrell, whose radar had been on the blink, held his nerve to land the conversion. He then lost it as his ‘ golden’ shot came back off the inside of the post in the first period of sudden death.

“Did I consider handing over the kicking duties? No,I back myself,” said England’s captain (right) after making amends with four minutes left.

“Obviously I missed some that I definitely, definitely shouldn’t have missed and made that game go on longer than it should have.

“There were a lot of chances to win that at game. It was my fault that we didn’t take them, but the boys ys kept going.”

France will be pig-sick to lose given they played virtually all the rugby by and were harshly treated by the referee.

Rugby legend Michael Lynagh tweeted weeted “absolute r u b b i s h” after pointing - to two m issed knock- ons s by England d in the move that led to the gametying gametry – one of which Billy y Vunipola later owned d up to.

France boss Fabien Galthie praised his s players for “honouring” hone the shirt but could not hide his frustration ustration at how the game was lost “on details but also on (refereeing) fereeing) decisions.”

So soon after losing a World Cup final, Eddie Jones was happy to take the win and leave the worry about how it was achieved for another day.

“It was probably not the way we wanted to play that game,” admitted Vunipola.

“We wanted to dominate from the start, but it is finals footie and France came at us hard.

“It was learning curve