French wide boys make light of travel sickness
FRANCE have finally won away from home in the Six Nations and it came on the back of their best attacking performance under Guy Noves.
Desperate to avoid dropping to ninth in the World Rugby standings and face a potential ‘pool of death’ at the 2019 World Cup, France, who hadn’t won outside of Paris in their last five Championship games, were under pressure to do so and it showed with a shaky start to the game.
Italy were looking to build on a solid performance at Twickenham two weeks ago, as controversial as it was, and scored an early Sergio Parisse try at Stadio Olimpico but their inability to turn opportunities into points cost them while their defensive line struggled to handle France fire- power out wide.
Les Bleus were still guilty of attempting too many unnecessary offloads but they found big gaps out wide and when they picked their battles better, and looked after the ball, they proved far too much to handle for the Italians.
Gael Fickou, outstanding in midfield all game, Virimi Vakatawa, Louis Picamoles and Brice Dulin got the French tries while Camille Lopez was faultless from the tee.
France coach Guy Noves said: “We worked really hard to secure the bonus point but at times we lacked patience and forced too many offloads.
“We’re capable of being brilliant at times so I hope we’ll be cold-blooded and hold the ball for as long as required.”
With France collapsing a maul 15 metres in front of their posts, Italy had the opportunity to take an early three-point lead but they got more than that playing on the advantage to see Carlo Canna break through and offload to Parisse for the opening try.
Canna couldn’t convert and a penalty scrum allowed France to reduce the gap with the boot of Camille Lopez.
Penalties at the breakdown allowed Canna and Lopez to exchange points but the French ended the first quarter with a stunning try to take the lead.
Dulin and Vakatawa launched a counter-attack from their own 22 and from the next phase Fickou dummied and ran under the posts from halfway.
Lopez’s conversion put Les Bleus 13-8 in front.
Italy were in a confrontational mood carrying hard around the breakdown forcing France to concede another penalty which Canna converted.
But France were dominant at the scrum and another penalty won by tighthead Rabah Slimani gave them a five-point lead at the break after Lopez kicked the resulting penalty.
France and Lopez started the second half as they finished the first with a penalty before Fickou found another gap and launched another lungbusting counter attack.
He unleashed Vakatawa down the left but the Sevens star was tumbled into touch five metres short by a sensational cover tackle from full-back Edoardo Padovani.
But there was no stopping the Fijian-born winger two minutes later when he ran a short line to burst through two defenders togo in at the posts and within ten minutes France were in control at 26-11.
Italy responded but Giorgio Bronzini as held up over the line by Louis Picamoles and Dulin. It was made worse when Picamoles charged over from the back of a fivemetre scrum for France’s third try.
Eddy Ben Arous was denied the bonus-point try as Picamoles was deemed to have his foot in touch in the lead-up but they secured through Dulin after another slick move out wide.
Angelo Esposito went over in the corner on the last play but it was far too little too late.