WOLVES’ future scrum half Richie Myler claimed two tries as England opened the Four Nations with a 34-12 win against France.

Leeds trio Lee Smith, Kevin Sinfield and Ryan Hall and Hull FC’s Tom Briscoe also scored in an ultimately comfortable win, although initially the sun failed to rise on England’s new dawn.

Tony Smith’s young side had trailed 12-4 at the break following a dismal first half strewn with errors and littered with penalties.

But the match hinged on a nine-minute spell after the break when England touched down three times, including Myler’s double, to exert a grip on proceedings they never released.

England had actually taken the lead in a scrappy opening spell when the ball was moved right and Myler combined with Danny McGuire to send in Smith on 13 minutes.

Fired up and physical, Bobbie Goulding’s France recovered to have the better of the first 40 minutes, although they met feeble resistance.

Unsurprisingly, they went ahead when Jean-Philippe Baile spun out of a tackle from Hall and Clint Greenshields’ offload allowed Vincent Duport to score in the corner. Thomas Bosc added the conversion.

England errors consistently popped up and one such howler led to France’s second try when Scott Moore’s pass was intercepted by Julien Touxagas and Kane Bentley squirmed over the line. Bosc’s boot was unerring.

Chances were limited for the remainder of the half but Wolves back-rower Ben Westwood made a potentially try-saving tackle to haul down Olivier Elima on the 20-metre line.

But it all changed in the second half when France simply caved in.

England scored within four minutes of the restart when Adrian Morley’s barrelling run set the platform and Myler spun out of a tackle from James Wynn and squeezed through three tacklers on the line to score.

The conversion from Sinfield cut the gap to two before Myler struck again to push his side ahead.

Doing what he does best, the scampering scrum half supported Hall’s break to split the defence and then popped up on Sinfield’s shoulder to take the pass and touch down.

Sinfield added the extras and then completed the nine-minute treble by scoring himself.

Jamie Peacock did well to offload out of the tackle and his former Leeds teammate darted between the posts to make the conversion a formality.

Hall intercepted a loose pass from Bosc to score a length of the field try on 66 minutes, showing impressive pace to hold off the chasing Greenshields.

Kyle Eastmond’s clever grubber kick allowed Tom Briscoe to complete the scoring two minutes from time, Sinfield adding the extras to both tries to make the final scoreline comfortable.

But there was still time for some late drama when Myler was almost decapitated by a clothesline from Baile that forced him to leave the field with a minute to go and resulted in a red card for the Frenchman.