Ex-Wigan Warriors Academy star is England hero in World Cup opener

England defied the third minute red card shown to Tom Curry for a dangerous challenge to put one foot in the knockout phase at the expense of their closest rivals in Pool D.

Ford – the son of Mike Ford, Wigan’s scrum-half in the 1985 Challenge Cup final – emerged as the architect of the Pumas’ death by a thousand cuts by kicking six penalties and three drop-goals, as well as providing the generalship needed to overcome Curry’s absence.

“I’m really pleased for the supporters around that stadium too – they were absolutely magnificent,” head coach Borthwick said.

“There are tens of thousands of England supporters in France and they are going to follow us around and spend a lot of money to do that.

“We want to make sure they have nights to remember and I think they’ll remember this one.

“All the people back home in their living rooms on their sofas and in the pubs, I hope they had a good night. We hope they’ll have another good night against Japan next Sunday.”

There were heroes across the field and none more so than Ford, who provided the leadership as England threatened to be engulfed by the crisis presented by a fourth red card in six Tests.

The fightback was given impetus through Ford’s early drop-goals and the Sale fly-half believes they can make a difference over the coming weeks.

“It’s a great weapon for us. We know how important and big drop-goals can be at World Cups,” said Oldham-born Ford, who switched codes as a teenager, and in 2009 took Wiganer Owen Farrell’s record as the youngest player to make his professional debut in England, aged just 16 years and 237 days old.

“Just the way the game unfolded, we went a man down quite early but it was greasy, it was difficult to hold the ball for many phases.

“In our heads we wanted to be clinical in terms of coming away with points when we had good field position.

"But it’s incredibly hard to attack when they’ve got a lot of numbers in the line.”