The teams are out at Warrington's Halliwell Jones Stadium, and now Rob Burrow's three children bring out the matchball, with their father watching on from one of the boxes.

The young Burrows were also interviewed pitchside on Sky Sports earlier and were remarkably confident, well spoken and positive about today's occasion. Heart-warming stuff.

France men’s head coach Laurent Frayssinous, speaking to Sky Sports, on naming seven debutants in his line-up: “Yeah, we are looking at the 2025 World Cup in France, so that’s why we gave opportunities to some young players.

“So far this week, the camp has been great, the boys have worked hard, their behaviour has been awesome and I’m looking forward to these 80 minutes.”

On the decision to move Arthur Morgue upfield from full-back to half-back: “Arthur is more a six, a runner with the ball, so I know what you mean about him being targeted but he is smart enough to defend a bit more on the edge and save some energy for the attacks.”

England men's head coach Shaun Wane, speaking to Sky Sports: “I’m really proud to see the players wearing the shirt today. It’s for a great cause – Rob Burrow is very close to our hearts. Our players understand what they’re playing or today.

“I’ve got 13 debutants and I’m really excited to see how they go. The things I’ve stressed are: Run hard, keep momentum, play on every play, there are a few things we’ve worked on, it’s not complicated. If we do those things right, I’m sure we can get the win.”

England: Jack Welsby, Ash Handley, Toby King, Jake Wardle, Matty Ashton, George Williams, Harry Smith, Tom Holroyd, Danny Walker, Ethan Havard, Matty Nicholson, Kai Pearce-Paul, Morgan Smithies.

Interchange: Jez Litten, James Harrison, Ben Currie, Tyler Dupree.

France: Tanguy Zenon, Arthur Romano, Samisoni Langi, Matthieu Laguerre, Paul Marcon, Arthur Mourgue, Cesar Rouge, Tiaki Chan, Anthony Marion, Florian Vailhen, Benjamin Jullien, Mathieu Cozza, Mickael Goudemand.

Interchange: Ugo Tison, Justin Sangare, Bastien Scimone, Louis Jouffret.

England head coach Shaun Wane is confident he has the support of his Super League counterparts, despite several withdrawals from his squad.

Wane initially named a group of 40 to face France, but he said a variety of reasons led to some notable omissions when the match squad of 19 was named on Tuesday.

"I've had meetings with all the Super League coaches and CEOs and they have my trust, I know they all want England to do well," said ex-Wigan coach Wane.

England coach Shaun Wane named 20 uncapped players in his 40-man extended squad for today's friendly, with 13 named in today's line-up.

Ben Currie, Kai Pearce-Paul, Jack Welsby and George Williams are the only players to have already represented England in a Test, and Warrington half-back George Williams has been named the new captain, replacing his former Wigan team-mate Sam Tomkins.

Hosts England hoped they would be playing in that World Cup final but suffered an agonising golden-point defeat by Samoa in the semi-finals.

This is their first game since and coach Shaun Wane said this week that their 2025 World Cup campaign starts with today's mid-season international against France.

"Everything is about the next World Cup in 2025," said Wane, who has extended his contract to the end of that tournament.

"I've picked a squad that I think can do a really good job, and they're at the right age that can fire, improve and get better in time so that they are peaking in 2025.

"I'm excited about how young the squad is. I'm hoping everybody else is. Some of the talent in Super League is really impressive.

"There are players who played in the last World Cup who were [aged] over 30, which is not normally how I pick my teams, but they were the best players."

Image source, PA Media

Today the England men's and women's teams are wearing a specially designed jersey in support of Rob Burrow and the Motor Neurone Disease Association.

It is inspired by England's 2012 shirt, which was worn by former Leeds Rhinos half-back Burrow, who was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease in 2019.

The 2012 shirt featured a red St George's cross but on today's jersey the cross is navy blue and amber, the same colours of Burrow's only club Leeds and the MND Association.

On the back there is also a famous quote from Burrow: "In a world full of adversity, we must dare to dream."

Burrow has inspired several fundraising efforts for MND research and last November his former team-mate Kevin Sinfield raised £1.5m for charity after completing seven ultra marathons in seven days, finishing at Old Trafford at half-time in the World Cup final.

Image source, PA Media

England captain Jodie Cunningham, speaking to Sky Sports: “I’m really impressed with that. We’ve not had a lot of time together, and so we said we’d play eyes-up rugby and the enthusiasm took all the wind out of France really. The points are an outcome of doing things right.

"The scoreline’s nice but it’s about doing things right, making sure we’re on each other’s shoulders, supporting each other and not missing those tackles.”

England head coach Stuart Barrow, speaking to Sky Sports: “I’d mark that performance as seven out of 10, with room for improvement, but 10 for application and effort.

"We’ve had limited time together and we talked about a process game. We had some really specific goals of what we wanted to achieve today, around a high completion rate, and I thought we executed it really, really well.”

France head coach Romain Maillot, speaking to Sky Sports: “It’s a new team and a young team so we must work to match England. We lost the confidence following the drop-out at the kick-off and it’s difficult to stay in the game from there but we need to work on it.”

Player of the match Leah Burke, speaking to Sky Sports: “We just talked beforehand about the importance of completion, and it was really important that we completed our sets. We knew that if we completed our sets, we’d get the wins on the back of it, and that’s what we spoke about – playing our own game, and I think that’s what we did today.

“I’ll watch that game back straight away. I always look out for the mistakes first, but I don’t think there were many of them from us today as a team. It was really good. As a wing, it’s obviously my job to finish tries, but I think it’s a reflection of what the middles did today, and a whole team performance.

“Eboni Partington’s stepped up massively today – I play with her at St Helens. She’s grasped the opportunity and she’s smashed it on that edge. I think it’s really good that she got that try to seal the deal.”

St Helens winger Leah Burke finished as England's leading try scorer with four of their 12 tries, and Sky Sports have named the 24-year-old today's player of the match.

Amy Hardcastle gets a sniff of another try before the full-time hooter but it's not to be.

It's still a thoroughly impressive performance from England, though, as they get Stuart Barrow's spell as coach off to a winning start.

There are some stark stats coming through to demonstrate England's dominance in today's mid-season international.

France have managed just nine play-the-balls in their opponents' half, compared to 78 for England, while France have gained 369 metres to England's 1146. The hosts have also had just one missed tackle.

That pretty much sums it up for France. They earn a scrum inside the England half but as Lise Michel prepares to launch a rare French attack, she knocks on at the base of the scrum.

Margot Canal does well to gather Zoe Harris' kick over the top and concede a goal-line drop-out, denying England their 10th try - for now at least.