Defending champions France Classic Rugby made a strong statement in their search for a third consecutive World Rugby Classic title, with a massive 40-0 win over Classic United States Eagles last night at North Field, National Sports Centre.

France are now through to the semi-finals where they will meet Classic Ireland, after the Irish held off a determined Rugby Canada 29-24 in last night’s second match.

The French made a slow start in the match, kept in their own half for the first three minutes, but once settled in, they blew away their opponents.

While they only managed just twelve points in the first half, they came back strong in the second period and added a further 28.

From a quickly taken line-out, the defending champions had their first try, as Emmanuel Etien went over the line, and Mathieu Amoros was successful with the conversion.

Stanislas Durand scored the second five-pointer for the French, but Amoros could not add the two extra points for a 12-0 half-time lead.

USA worked to fight their way into the match at the start of the second half, as they kept up the pressure for the opening six minutes.

France absorbed that early push from their opponents, and then the damn burst with four great tries.

Benoit Lazzarotto, Yoan Palission, AlexPalisson, and Benoit Marfaing crossed the whitewash, with Amoros booting in all the four conversions.

Durand later declared his team’s intention to not let go of the title.

“We’re defending our title and we’re really happy with the win,’’ Durand said. “To win, we have to really stay serious, remain disciplined, stick to our game plan and go for it. We know the opponents won’t make it easy for us, but of course, we’re going to keep at it, we’re going to try our best.”

Eagles captain Colin Hawley conceded that the French were much better than them on the night.

“Credit to the French side, they’re come here and they’ve won before,’’ Hawley said. “They played great rugby, best of luck to them moving forward. In terms of our squad, we left about four tries on the table, we were right there knocking on the door. We’re still finding our shape here, and we’re looking forward to a better performance in our next match.”

The second match of the night was an explosive affair, with a five-point margin separating the Irish and the Canadians at the end of the 60 minutes.

Jared Stevens missed two penalty kicks at the goal that would have put the North Americans six points ahead.

Canada had scrum half Jorden Sandover-Best sent to the sin-bin for a deliberate knock-on.

From the resultant penalty, Ireland had their first try, Dave Kearney with the breakthrough, and the conversion from Noel Reid was successful.

With ten minutes to go, Canada scored through Aaron McLelland and Stephens added the extras. A penalty goal by Stephens had the Canadians 10-7 in front.

Ireland finished the first half strongly, Craig Gilroy went the line for his team’s second try, with another set of five points coming from Eoin Keane, for the Irish to lead 17-10 heading into the break.

A moment of individual brilliance ten minutes into the second half from McLelland, which saw him evade a number of tackles, before sprinting all the way from the halfway line to score a try, had the Canadians back in it at 17-17.

Three minutes later, Barry Lyn exploited a gap in the Canadian defence to plant the ball over the line, with a successful conversion making it 24-17 to the men in green.

Kearney weighed in with his second five points of the match, but a missed conversion only took the Irish lead to 29-17.

With eight minutes left on the clock, Morgan Findlay brought Canada back into contention with a converted try, but the Irish held on for victory.

The Irish are fancying their chances of dethroning the French, with captain Mike Ross indicating that in order for that to happen, they have to ensure that their players are fit to play.

“It was a really tough game against Canada,’’ Ross said. “They certainly showed up and pressed us really hard. I felt at times we didn't look after the ball as much as we needed to, threw it around a bit, but happy to come out with the win.

“That was a very good Canadian side, they've been preparing for this for a number of months so it was definitely not easy out there.

“Our chances of winning the tournament are pretty good if we can keep a team on the pitch, we had a few injuries, we’re playing France who are the reigning champions, we have to see what the body count looks like tomorrow, and go from there.

“We have a couple of players coming out tomorrow too, so that should help. Some of them couldn't get time off work so tomorrow is the earliest they could come up.”

Knockout action continues tonight with two matches lined up. Classic Pumas face Italian Classic XV, before Lions Legends collide with Classic Springboks.