Six days have passed since the New Zealand trauma, and yet this disillusionment has not aged a single bit. A third consecutive victory against the All Blacks, what's more at home in front of 80,000 French people, is to finish us off. So against Argentina, we were hoping for a boss response from the French XV; but instead, we took a final cathedral tackle.
The XV of France trains the Pumas
While we have been playing for six minutes, France obtains a worrying penalty 10 meters from the Argentinian goal. But just after the scrum collapsed, Paul Boudehent had the sublime idea of pushing his opponent to the ground. The referee reverses the penalty. The Argentines can breathe, and so can we. But the respite is only short-lived; Thibaud Flament scored the first French try of the game, but unfortunately not the last of the evening.
Indeed, Gabin Villière drove the point home after half an hour of play, after Léo Barré managed to give the ball away after contact without the scientists having yet understood how.
If we hoped to have seen enough, it was without counting on Juan Martin Gonzalez who plays “rescue on his line”. Indeed, while Bielle-Biarrey prepares to recover the ball and flatten it in the in-goal, the third line of the Pumas imagines himself for a moment as a teammate of Earvin Ngapeth, and volleys the ball with an absolute beauty just above the winger's red helmet. Unfortunately, this joke is not to the taste of the referee, who whistles a penalty try. 30-9 for France at the break. Looking forward to winter to end this fall tour.
Louis Bielle-Biarrey, the burden of the FFL
While the Argentines have just scored their first try, and avoided Fanny, Louis Bielle-Biarrey does not condone this relaxation. So the Bordeaux winger takes the ball, kicks for himself and flattens the try all by himself like a big man. Rugby seems so simple that we almost forget that our life expectancy would be around 5 seconds in such a match.
A final Argentinian try changes nothing in the face of the game. The XV of France won 37-23 against the Pumas, and had a flawless performance in this fall tour. But let's not see the glass half empty; the good news of the evening is that the Blues lost the second half (7-16). And we will only remember that.
