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A Ryan Cross double and an almost perfect kicking game from Western Force fly-half Matt Giteau helped the Wallabies to a record 40-10 win over France in Brisbane last night.
The Force duo was unstoppable during the match, scoring 30 of the Wallabies points between them.
Man of the match Giteau showed great vision with his tactical kicking and converted all eight of his place kicks to bring up his 300th test point in front of a 40,214 Brisbane crowd. A pin-point cross-field kick from Giteau to winger Peter Hynes in the 7th minutes of the match opened the try scoring for the Wallabies when Hynes made the catch and scampered over the line.
Giteau’s running game was equally impressive and he showed flair any French player would be envious of when he threw a spectacular no-look pass to setup James Horwill just before halftime. The movement brought the Wallabies lead to 26-3 at the break.
The performance of Force teammate Ryan Cross, who came off the Wallabies bench to replace an injured Berrick Barnes in the 52nd minute, will have posed coach Robbie Deans with a welcome selection headache.
Cross scored his first Wallabies’ try with one of his first touches of the match after he received a flat pass from Giteau and crashed over French winger Alexis Palisson to score. Great workrate from Cross allowed him to bring up Australia’s 40th point when he scored a second try out wide in the final quarter of the match.
The only French try was scored by Francois Trinh-Duc in the match’s final minute while Force player and Wallabies’ fullback Cameron Shepherd was being prepared to be stretchered off. The French took advantage of the injury, suspected to be a broken leg, by kicking into the space left by Shepherd behind the Wallabies line and chasing down the loose ball.
In the televised post match interview Deans said the effort the Wallabies had shown was pleasing. “Each game there’s little bits of progress and little bits of frustration, we will just keep chipping away. The defence has been great and that’s something we are going to need going forward.”
The upcoming Tri Nations matches, which Deans described as “the real McCoy”, would provide a much greater challenge than the French but he was confident the team would make the step up.
Australia’s next match will be their Tri Nations opener against the Springboks at Subiaco Oval, Perth, on July 19. South Africa lost 19-8 to the All Blacks last night in a typically physical encounter between the old rivals.
Australia 40: (Ryan Cross 2, Peter Hynes, James Horwill tries; Matt Giteau 4 penalties, 4 conversions),
France 10: (Francois Trinh-Duc try; Trinh-Duc penalty, Dimitri Yachvili conversion).
Referee: Paul Honiss (NZ).
By James Heffield, Betfair journalist
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