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Match Wash-Up: Australia vs France
What a match. Well match isn’t really the right word for it as the final score line of 59-16 shows that if anything there was no match, no equality, between these two teams. Last night’s game lived up to none of the promise in the build up. Where France were supposed to be a gear or two higher than Italy, there was nothing. No incisive, dazzling attack. No rock-solid defence. In France it seems inspiration is in short supply.
Hints that the Wallabies were on song started with an early try in the 5th minute. A neatly executed set move saw James O’Connor bust through the defence. In what has become typical fashion for the Wallabies, this try was closely followed by France being allowed back into the game. Some would say Bryce Lawrence was out of order penalizing the Wallabies on their own put in without a second reset. Regardless, an easy three points were taken by Parra.
The following minutes became a bit of a tit for tat. An O’Connor penalty was replied to by a Parra penalty and then another O’Connor penalty. France’s reply to this was devastating. After Drew Mitchell kicked out on the full after the ball was passed back into the 22, France mauled the ball forward from a line-out only for Nathan Sharpe to be penalized for coming in from an offside position. The resulting 5m scrum was reset twice before Lawrence brandished the yellow sticker to Ben Alexander and gifted France a penalty try. This levelled the scores 13-13 and put the game on a knife edge. Had France been able to shut-down the Wallabies’ attack, they may have been able to sneak away with a win. Or would the Wallabies be able to demonstrate some of their trademark flair in attack?
The start of the second half suggested the former with another Parra penalty in the 43rd minute. The following 35 minutes were probably the most amazing demonstration of the Wallabies attack all season. Only in Bloemfontein and Pretoria earlier in the year did the Wallabies run rings around their opponents for a sustained period of time like that. Yet where the Wallabies allowed the Boks to claw their way back into the game, the Wallabies eclipsed France and they didn’t get within a whisker of scoring for 36 minutes. Six tries were scored in this time, with a notable hat trick to Drew Mitchell, averaging over a point a minute. O’Connor also tacked on another two penalties to add insult to injury. The jeering and booing of the home side fans was deafening as the game closed out with an O’Connor try, bringing his match total to a whopping 29 points. There will have been fights on the streets of Paris last night- a lot of fans with an axe to grind.
Their build up to next year’s world cup campaign has been totally derailed and there are question marks over whether or not Lievremont will retain the topic jobs. The Wallabies on the other hand will be flying high after a big win over a normally tough opponent. We just have to hope this isn’t a false dawn and that the Wallabies coaches finally work something out to fix up the scrum.
The Wash-up:
How do you read this game? Were Australia brilliant or were France awful? Or both? I’d say both. So you can’t really take too much out of this game. Running up a cricket score against an uninspired opposition doesn’t provide our young players with the mental and physical test of beating a tough opposition in a close encounter.
So, why were France so bad? This one rests entirely on Marc Lievremont’s shoulders. The whole game plan, largely copied off of England, was wrong. England had shocked the Wallabies a fortnight earlier with these tactics and Lievremont’s team selection just screamed of what the game plan was. Unimaginative by Lievremont, especially when you consider the young Wallabies’ desperation to make up for that loss at Twickenham. Damien Traille was terrible as a playmaker and wasn’t able to unleash Rougerie and Jauzion as Flood had done with Hape and Tindall. This was just one cog in the machine, however and more could be said of France’s inability to stop the Wallaby forwards from slowing down their attack. The French counted on dominating the scrums and having an easy day of one out runners making plenty of ground over the gain line. They weren’t prepared for a dog-fight. Worse still from Lievremont was the lack of a plan B. He should have seen in the first 40 that France were only making points off of scrums and subbed in Francois Trinh-Duc to mix up the attack. Instead they did the same things that hadn’t worked for the last half and were run ragged by a leaner, faster, hungrier, more imaginative backline. In a sense France’s attack did live up to their ‘x-factor’ reputation. A big red x. A big fail. Epic.
Given that the scrum was the only area where France exerted any pressure, it is really hard to judge the Wallabies’ progress since England. Even so, score lines like 59-16 don’t happen often in international rugby. Especially not in a home game for a top European team. The 46 odd points scored in 30 minutes speak of efficiency in attack that was sorely missing from last weekends’ encounter with Italy. This was a definite positive to take from this game. The Wallabies were ruthless, and where they could’ve taken their foot off, tries kept on raining in. This was one area where the Wallabies were tested and passed with flying colours. The scrum still a glaring deficiency for the Wallabies, but this will be discussed further in a later end of tour review. The only other problem area over the tour was the Wallabies defence. The jury is still out on this one as France didn’t truly test our defence, or at least it wasn’t tested at its weakest points.
Man of the Match:
Just as it is getting boring talking about the scrum each week, it is almost becoming equally so talking about how well David Pocock keeps playing. Somebody slap me- I don’t know what I am saying. In a team of standout performers, Ben Alexander aside, Pocock stood out and further cemented his claim to IRB player of the year. He made good metres, he tackled his heart out, he won turnovers, and his passing was slick. There wasn’t much more he could’ve done. Other players deserving of praise are Adam-Ashley Cooper, for hard and straight running that kept the French under constant pressure, Stephen Moore, whose work around the field made up for the scrum, ahh bugger it too many to name. I will mention JO’C for his great 10 out of 12 kicking effort though. He really made up for his average game against England.
Finding a standout for France is a tough gig. They were dreadful. Morgan Parra was among the best backs, however he his game was still rather poor. Sebastien Chabal was animated, and sucked in defenders well, but stood alone in the French pack. You could have a shout out to the French front row, but they have just done what ever other team has done this tour. Nothing new there.
Wallaby Game Score:
The Wallabies can be pretty pleased with that performance. Short of starting the rout earlier on in the game, there really wasn’t much more they could’ve done (scrum excluded). Whether they can replicate that performance against a side that is applying the blowtorch remains unanswered. For now we can remain optimistic. Rating: A-.
