Australia 22 France 6
There's an old, cynical saying: Raise your right hands if you like the French; raise both hands if you are French.
Last night, in Sydney, the French rugby team lasted about 60 minutes before putting up both hands to the Wallabies - and no one was able to spin
a concocted yarn about being ambushed this time.
The Mathieu Bastareaud incident sparked off a touch of disfavour in this country and many of the old barbs about France's supposed lack of courage are being trotted out again, like Scots Willie's infamous quotes from The Simpsons ("cheese-eating surrender monkeys") and General George Patton's assertion that "I would rather have a German division in front of me than a French one behind me". But, last night, the French had to stand and deliver against the Wallabies.
Rugby is a game of truth; there can be no hiding in the scrums, the lineouts, the loose, the tackle, the execution of pass, kick and run. You can't just quietly slip out the door like a busted Bastareaud.
Team management can't turn up at the press conference and present a united front of old cobblers behind which the players hide (although there are more than a few suspicions that is what they did in sneaking Bastareaud home - where he will likely be punished severely by having to drink bad wine or being forced to inhale onion fumes).
The percentages didn't lie - and neither did the sight of the Australians using the ball better than the French; and better than the All Blacks in each of the last two weeks, come to that.
The only try, to Matt Giteau, came after 15 minutes, from long passing which allowed winger Lachie Turner to make a cut. A clever feint and against-the-flow pass from Berrick Barnes split the defence the All Blacks found so difficult to part.
The Wallaby scrum seemed tighter than the All Blacks and, a couple of Al Baxter nose-dives apart, seemed to deal well enough with the French unit. They shaded the messy lineouts and the French had no answer to the choking Wallaby defence.
There was too much spilled ball for it to be a classic and the French tried to be structured, considered and effective - but the Wallabies were always more of a threat with ball in hand.
Barnes and Stirling Mortlock gave the French midfield problems and their defence made the French runners seem wooden at times. Barnes' copybook tackling produced one of Giteau's four penalties early in the second half and took the Australians to a 22-3 lead; with Giteau scoring all 22.
The French were infringing at the breakdown and getting stung by penalties - the ref kept putting his right hand up but he didn't seem to like the French at all - and not even the imaginative fables of Bastareaud's bedpost could get them out of this one.
They didn't capitulate, however - it was the long, slow attrition of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow rather than the French of the Maginot Line, although they didn't really fire a shot either. And although the Wallabies were far from perfect, it didn't cast the All Blacks in a very good light.
Australia 22 (M. Giteau try; Giteau con, 5 pens), France 6 (L. Beauxis pen, D. Yachvili pen). Halftime: 10-3.
