France 42 Italy 31

An unconvincing France ended their five match home losing streak here on Saturday at the Stade de France beating a game and gutsy Italian side, who had their oldest player 35-year-old Valter Cristofoletto sent-off, 42-31 in their final Six Nations match.

The French, who only went into the break 20-17 ahead thanks to a dubious try by Thomas Castaignede which appeared to be touched down over the deadball line, outscored their visitors by five tries to four while the Italians retiring fly-half Diego Dominguez kicked 11 points and did a lap of honour to celebrate his farwell international.

Cristofoletto, who had already been sinbinned in the first-half, was given his marching orders in the 62nd minute by Argentine referee Pablo Deluca after he stamped on legendary Moroccan-born backrower Abdelatif Benazzi and left in shame to catcalls from the hostile home crowd.

Benazzi, who had been dropped to the bench because coach Bernard Laporte claimed he was anonymous against the Irish a fortnight ago, paid the Italians back bigtime with a try a minute later taking scrum-half Aubin Hueber's reverse pass and touching down -- Dourthe failing for the first time to convert.

With the Italians tiring and outnumbered Alain Penaud, who had a mainly unconvincing afternoon on his first start since 1997, ran in his second try of the afternoon and with Dourthe converting took the score to 42-17.

The Italians, though, showed tremendous spirit and scored their third try when Nicola Mazzucato burst through the French defence and touched down under the posts -- which Dominguez converted for 42-24.

Italian captain Alessandro Troncon the added a final try after some dreadful French errors and Dominguez added the conversion to bring down the curtain on his great career.

French captain Fabien Pelous, a member of the Grand Slam sides of 1997 and 1998, gave the French vital early momentum in the second-half touching down and with Dourthe landing an exceelent conversion from out on the right touchline they grabbed a 10-point lead 27-17.

The faultless Dourthe added a penalty to extend their lead further.

Dominguez missed with a kickable drop-goal three minutes into the match and from France's counter-attack Thomas Castaignede, restored to fullback, looked certain to score a try but slipped and knocked the ball forward.

The French went ahead on 10 minutes when Dourthe, who also had been recalled after recovering from a fractured cheekbone, slotted over a penalty in front of the posts.

Dominguez, who made his debut against France back in 1991, went close to scoring a try for Italy as after sustained pressure from the visitors he was tackled short of the line and knocked the ball on as he was twisting to touch it down.

However, the diminutive Argentinian-born fly-half was not to be denied and levelled the match with a drop-goal just after the quarter-hour mark.

The Italians impressive early pressure paid-off with a deserved try five minutes later as centre Luca Martin picked up the loose ball and ran it in under the posts, Castaignede failing to bring him down, and Dominguez converted to give them the lead while the French crowd never the most faithful bunch of supporters whistled and jeered their side.

The Italians almost grabbed another try a minute later after the French had kicked straight into touch from the kick-off for the second time but Dominguez's clever chip over the top was booted over the deadball line by Castaignede with Nicolas Mazzucatto bearing down on him.

Dominguez' French counterpart Penaud, by contrast, had had a very shaky start to the match but broke through scrum-half Alessandro Troncon's tackle 25 metres out and ran the ball in despite Matt Pini's despairing effort to tackle him -- Dourthe converted to level the match.

Within minutes, however, Troncon had made up for the error by selling a dummy to the French defence and took the ball in from three metres out, after some great play by Bergamasco, and while Dominguez was converting, to take the score to 17-10, French captain Fabien Pelous was reading the riot act to his bedraggled looking team.

The French reduced the gap when Dourthe converted a penalty after a foul by Cristofoletto, who was sinbinned for his troubles -- in an all action period of play former Wallaby fullback Pini produced a try saving tackle on French winger Daniel Bory but then Castaignede "scored" his try, Dourthe converting, to douse the Italians hopes.

The Teams:

France:  1 Christian Califano, 2 Marc Dal Maso, 3 Franck Tournaire, 4 Olivier Brouzet, 5 Fabien Pelous (c), 6 Lionel Mallier, 7 Olivier Magne, 8 Thomas Lievremont, 9 Aubin Hueber, 10 Alain Penaud, 11 Philippe Bernat-Salles, 12 Richard Dourthe, 13 Emile Ntamack, 14 David Bory, 15 Thomas Castaignede
Reserves:  Abdelatif Benazzi, Pieter De Villiers, Cedric Heymans, Raphael Ibanez, Hugues Miorin, David Venditti
Unused:  Christophe Laussucq

Italy:  1 Andrea Lo Cicero, 2 Alessandro Moscardi, 3 Tino Paoletti, 4 Carlo Checchinato, 5 Andrea Gritti, 6 Mauro Bergamasco, 7 Walter Cristofoletto, 8 Andrea De Rossi, 9 Alessandro Troncon (c), 10 Diego Dominguez, 11 Nicola Mazzucato, 12 Luca Martin, 13 Nicolas Zisti, 14 Cristian Stoica, 15 Matt Pini
Reserves:  Denis Dallan, Wim Visser, Carlo Orlandi, Salvatore Perugini
Unused:  Matteo Mazzantini, Aaron Persico, Andrea Scanavacca

Attendance:  77000
Referee:  Deluca p.

Points Scorers:

France
Tries:  Benazzi A. 1, Castaignede T. 1, Penaud A. 2, Pelous F. 1
Conv:  Dourthe R. 4
Pen K.:  Dourthe R. 3

Italy
Tries:  Martin L. 1, Mazzucato N. 1, Troncon A. 2
Conv:  Dominguez D. 4
Drop G.:  Dominguez D. 1