Australia scraped home with a narrow and somewhat fortunate 18-13 victory over France on Saturday to remain unbeaten on their November tour of Europe.
France provided most of the playing but an absolutely disastrous display from the kicking tee by fly-half David Skrela, who missed five kickable goals, handed the visitors victory.
The Wallabies did produce the occasional flash a decent rugby, but generally fed off the hosts' mistakes.
Do France have a confidence problem? Where is the flowing French flair that Marc Lièvremont has been promising? Les Bleus seemed almost panicked from the first minute, and more often than not chose to kick ahead rather than back their themselves to attack the Australian line with ball in hand for most of the opening three quarters.
On a number of occasions an overlap went a-begging as the first receiver punted. It seemed the only time les Bleus wanted to run it was when they were in deep trouble in their own 22, or when than had no other choice in the dying stages because it had become clear that Skrela wasn't going to do the business from the kicking tee.
As Yannick Jauzion hinted during the week France came out with the distinct intention over tackling their visitors back to Australia. Sebastien "Caveman" Chabal was at his very bruising best, putting in loads of big hits and looking positively scary when charging forward in possession.
But for all their aggro on defence, Lièvremont's troops were masters of shooting themselves in the foot on attack. Forgive me for harping on about what the French did, or did not, do but the truth of the matter is the hosts did more to hand the game to Australia than the tourists did to win it for themselves.
Time after time the blue-clad forwards would provide their backs with quality ball, and while a lot can be said for the merits of putting a defending back three under pressure, the way the home side squandered possession was criminal.
As for Australia, well they can take one line out of South Africa's phrase book and say "a win is a win".
After the rugby world sang their pack's praises for getting the better of England, the French scrum pulverised their opposition on a couple of occasions, as will be eluded to later.
The main talking point of this November Test series has been the interpretation of the laws at the breakdown and once again we saw the inconsistencies in world-wide refereeing as Craig Joubert was lenient to the point of indulgence compared to some of his colleagues this month and George Smith did not hesitate to take full advantage of the situation.
France's lack of belief in their own ability to beat a defensive curtain was clear as day inside the first ten minutes when Skrela attempted a drop goal rather than send the ball out wide, despite the fact that the French had laid siege to the Wallaby line and were generally going forward.
Skrela had already missed one penalty attempt and his failure was a sign of things to come.
Matt Giteau opened the scoring close to the half-an-hour mark with a three-pointer and hooker Stephen Moore would soon increase the lead. From close range, Moore stayed low and bashed through two defenders to stretch and arm out over the whitewash. Giteau added the extras to make gap ten points.
Skrela would miss two more penalties before his side got onto the scoreboard.
A shocking pass from Wallaby scrum-half Luke Burgess sailed over the dead-ball line to give the home side a five metre scrum. A massive push from the French forwards earned their team a penalty try on the stroke on half-time as the blue pack went straight through the Wallaby heavies. George Smith dived in, completely unbound and referee Joubert had no choice but to award five points to the home side.
Skrela couldn't have missed the conversion if he tried and France were still very much in the game as Australia led 10-7 when the teams headed for the sheds.
Lièvremont's side had mentioned before the game that the felt Giteau was the danger man and they heaped the pressure on the fly-half. Three times he was charged down.
The opening stages of the second half belonged to France as Skrela hit the target for once and full-back Maxime Medard slotted an audacious drop from nearly 50 metres out to put side ahead.
The French defence let itself down soon afterwards though as they failed to number up and Peter Hynes raced down the touchline on the blindside to score Australia's second try.
Just two points behind, Skrela had the fans at the Stade de France whistling their disapproval as he missed two more kicks and then earned himself a yellow card for a clumsy high tackle. He will go down as the villain of the night, which is a shame since he didn't have a bad game at all in general play.
Giteau had had no problems to kick his team into a five-point lead from in front of the posts a few minutes earlier in what turned out to be the last score of the game.
Man of the match: It's not convention to name a player on the losing side, but Sébastien Chabal gets our nod. He left a lot of Aussies with very sore bodies and broke through the gain line with brute force every time he had his hands on the ball.
Moment of the match: Australia didn't have a lot of meaningful possession, but they made it count when they did. Peter Hynes' try was pretty soft one, but it epitomised the fact that it just wasn't going to be France's night.
Villain of the match: Whoever decided to schedule the kick-off time for 21h00 in the middle of November. Brrrr....
The Scorers:
For France:
Try: Penalty try
Con: Skrela
Pen: Skrela
Drop: Medard
For Australia:
Tries: Moore, Hynes
Con: Giteau
Pens: Giteau 2
Yellow card: David Skrela (France - 75th minute - high tackle)
The teams:
France: 15 Maxime Medard, 14 Julien Malzieu, 13 Yannick Jauzion, 12 Benoit Baby, 11 Cedric Heymans, 10 David Skrela, 9 Sebastien Tillous-Borde, 8 Imanol Harinordoquy, 7 Fulgence Ouedraogo, 6 Thierry Dusautoir, 5 Lionel Nallet (c), 4 Sébastien Chabal, 3 Nicolas Mas, 2 Dimitri Szarzewski, 1 Lionel Faure.
Replacements: 16 Benjamin Kayser, 17 Benoit Lecouls, 18 Romain Millo Chluski, 19 Louis Picamoles, 20 Julien Tomas, 21 Damien Traille, 22 Alexis Palisson.
Australia: 15 Drew Mitchell, 14 Peter Hynes, 13 Adam Ashley-Cooper, 12 Stirling Mortlock (c), 11 Digby Ioane, 10 Matt Giteau, 9 Luke Burgess, 8 Wycliff Palu, 7 George Smith, 6 Dean Mumm, 5 Nathan Sharpe, 4 Hugh McMeniman, 3 Al Baxter, 2 Stephen Moore, 1 Ben Alexander.
Replacements: 16 Tatafu Polota-Nau, 17 Sekope Kepu, 18 Mark Chisholm, 19 David Pocock, 20 Sam Cordingley, 21 Quade Cooper, 22 Digby Ioane.
Venue: Stade de France, Paris
Weather: -2°C and clear, but with a strong north-westerly wind possibly bringing the odd flurry of snow later
Referee: Craig Joubert (South Africa)
Touch judges: Chris White (England), David Changleng (Scotland)
Television match official: Giulio De Santis (Italy)
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