MORGAN Knowles limped off with an ankle injury, Tommy Makinson crossed twice and Jonny Lomax was wrongly sin-binned in a mixed afternoon for the Saints contingent on England duty.

A fourth Saint, Alex Walmsley, had a towering game with some trademark strong running and smart offloading as England got of to a flying start against France in Perpignan.

The second half became a little disjointed, but England still had enough to see out a 30-10 victory.

England raced into a 20-0 lead after 17 minutes but a French rally in the final hour saw both sides score 10-apiece.

Shaun Wane handed debuts to eight players with the likes of Saints Mark Percival and Jack Welsby, plus Sam Tomkins, Tom Burgess, Daryl Clark and Elliot Whitehead available for next year's World Cup.

After nice work from Knowles and Lomax in the tackle before, England opened the scoring when Paul McShane's pass from dummy half put second rower Liam Farrell over on three minutes.

Half-back Jordan Abdull kicked the first of his three goals and kept the home side pinned back in their own half with some punishing kicks in an impressive start to his international career.

Another neat Lomax pass in the build up culminated in right winger Tom Davies pulling off a remarkable acrobatic one-handed finish to score England's second try.

Then Makinson, on the other flank, quickly added a third courtesy of fine dummy and pass from his Saints team-mate Lomax.

A blockbusting surge from the on-song Walmsley, a long pass from Lomax and some intricate inter-passing between Davies and centre Reece Lyne saw skipper John Bateman score the fourth try, which with Abdull's second goal made it 20-0.

England crucially lost Saints loose forward Knowles with an ankle injury 11 minutes before half-time and that significantly affected them on both sides of the ball.

France eventually responded when stand-off Arthur Mourge put giant 6ft 8in second rower Corentin Le Cam through a gap for a try on debut.

The French thought they have scored again when Kheirellah finished off a fantastic break by second rower Paul Seguier but it was disallowed for an obstruction on Lomax in the build-up.

England bombed another try when Lyne broke clear only to fail to execute the right pass to his wingman with a clear run to the line.

Lomax was sin-binned by French referee Ben Casty for an obstruction - despite it looking like he was not one of the players involved.

Makinson and Bateman added their second tries each while French forward Justin Sangare deservedly scored their second try.