France canter to win over the Oaks

Nine tries in easy warm-up match for the French

France beat Romania 62-14 in Bucharest on Saturday, scoring nine tries and having a god run out ahead of the tough-looking Test against South Africa in Cape Town next weekend.

It was a baking hot dry day in the Cotroceni Stadium in Bucharest, with 8,000 people watching, in itself a triumph for a Romanian team which has fallen away from its previous position of strength in European rugby.

Not only that, but Daniel Santamans' team were significantly weakened before the match by injury, and were thus sitting ducks for the French team warming up towards their World Cup next year.

The French led 31-6 by half-time, through tries by Yannick Jauzion in the eighth minute, Remy Martin twenty minutes later and then a quick-fire double by Thierry Dusautoir on his debut and Damien Traille in the three minutes before the break.

Sylvain Marconnet, Thomas Castaignède, Dimitri Szarzewski, Julien Laharrague and David Marty carried on the rout in the second half, with Traille adding six conversions and a penalty, and Castaignède adding the other conversion.

However, Romania did not lie down, and were rewarded with a try on the hour mark by wing Catalin Fercu after a mistake by Clement Poitrenaud, to add to the three penalties kicked by full-back Florin Vlaicu.

As a warm-up Test, it will have served a useful purpose for Bernard Laporte for the players and staff to get together again, but the real test will be in Cape Town next week.

The scorers:

For Romania:
Try:  Fercu
Pens:  Vlaicu 3

For France:
Tries:  Jauzion, Martin, Dusautoir, Traille, Marconnet, Castaignède, Szarzewski, Laharrague, Marty
Cons:  Traille 6, Castaignède
Pen:  Traille

The teams:

France:  15 Clément Poitrenaud, 14 Cédric Heymans, 13 Yannick Jauzion, 12 Damien Traille, 11 Philippe Bidabé, 10 Thomas Castaignède, 9 Pierre Mignoni, 8 Remy Martin, 7 Julien Bonnaire, 6 Thierry Dusautoir, 5 Fabien Pelous (cap), 4 Lionel Nallet, 3 David Attoub, 2 Raphael Ibañez, 1 Sylvain Marconnet.
Replacements:  16 Dimitri Szarzewski, 17 Vincent Debaty, 18 Jérôme Thion, 19 Imañol Harinordoquy, 20 Dimitri Yachvili, 21 David Marty, 22 Julien Laharrague.

Romania:  15 Florin Vlaicu, 14 Catalin Fercu, 13 Robert Dascalu, 12 Romeo Gontineac, 11 Ioan Teodorescu, 10 Ionut Dimofte, 9 Lucian Sirbu, 8 Cosmin Ratiu, 7 Marian Tudori, 6 Stelian Burcea, 5 Cristi Petre, 4 Sorin Socol (captain), 3 Bogdan Balan, 2 Marius Tincu, 1 Petru Balan.
Replacements:  16 Cezar Popescu, 17 Ion Paulica, 18 Razvan Mavrodin, 19 Valentin Ursache, 20 Vali Calafeteanu, 21 Gabriel Brezoianu, 22 Iulian Dumitras.

Referee:  Bryce Lawrence (New Zealand)
Touch judges:  Malcolm Changleng, David Changleng (both Scotland)
Assessor:  Doug Kerr (Scotland)