France keep their heads above water as a red tide rises
FRANCE kept motoring towards the business end of this tournament, avoiding both the disaster and outright brilliance they still look capable of.
This was another gem from the World Cup that keeps giving, and again Canada were a credit to the sport’s globalisation.
The full repertoire of French rugbyisms were on show last night. There was some glorious flair — especially from Frederic Michalak — risky sorties from defence, ample firepower and lapses of concentration.
Canada, enjoying superior support at the slightly soulless home of the MK Dons, had only five days to recover from their narrow defeat by Italy.
They made six changes while Philippe Saint-Andre, one of the great tinkermen, made 12 changes from the team that faced romania. On three minutes the restored Michalak
jinked through some sluggish tackling and from the back of the hand palmed an offload to Wesley Fofana — the only survivor in the same position from the Romania game — who fought off another challenge to score the fastest try of the competition so far.
Ten minutes later the 32year- old fly half kicked the penalty that took him past Thierry Lacroix’s record of 124 World Cup points.
It got worse when Canada lost captain Tyler Andron, and France hooker Guilhem Guirardo was driven over from close range to make it 17-0.
Then came the fightback as glorious as it was unexpected, with two tries in five minutes. Moving the ball wide from under the posts, DTH van der Merwe of Scarlets went past Sebastien Tillous Borde to score.
Suddenly there was a red tide heading towards France and Canada hooker Aaron Carpenter burrowed over the line.
France, in keeping with the end to end theme, came back and with a rare lapse in the Canadian defence, prop Rabah Slimani scored from the back of the line-out.
Canada’s scrum, with the enterprising Phil Mack buzzing around it, gave as good as it got and reduced the deficit by forcing a penalty early in the second half. Fly half Nathan Hirayama further stretched French nerves, cutting the lead to six points just before the hour mark. Only in the final quarter, powered by their bench, did France give themselves some sort of safety net. FRANCE: T: Fofana, Guirado, Slimani, Pape, Grosso. C: Michalak 4, Parra. P: Michalak 2. CANADA: T: Van der Merwe, Carpenter. C: Hirayama. P: Hirayama 2.