After victories against Japan and the All Blacks, the XV of France wanted to conclude this November tour on a good note against Argentina, at the Stade de France. Mission accomplished, with a controlled victory against Pumas who were too imprecise to compete (37-23). Superior in all areas of the game, the Tricolores end the year 2024 with a successful and promising performance. Looking forward to the sequel!
We will now have to resolve to say goodbye to all the things we loved so much over the course of this autumn: these pre-matches that the Stade de France has no equal for scripting; these feverish, nervous, incandescent atmospheres which make Fabien Galthié « addict » and that only the XV of France is today capable of provoking in these cold lands; the ball touch of Thomas Ramos, whose talent for finding “50-22” is an insult to all the other gunners on the international circuit; the charges of Paul Boudehent, a living example of what the faith of the coal miner can accomplish on a rugby field; or even “Manny” Meafou and his “positive tackles”, since this is how the Blues staff call them in a strange understatement, when the qualifiers of “attack”, “homicide” or “explosion” would stick obviously much better at defending from the Toulouse giant.
Frankly ? It was beautiful, it was good and it ended, finally, as it began: with an authoritarian victory, the delight of a stadium entirely dedicated to the cause of this team and the pure joy of a people oval which has never seemed so vast, as today it seems determined to tear rugby away from its traditional borders, from the Var to the South-West…
Had we seen these beautiful Pumas?
This match? It was actually folded more quickly than one might have initially thought. After ten rather neutral minutes, Thibaud Flament finally attacked Argentina's weak zone, the one embodied by fly-half Tomas Albornoz, carried the Treviso player a few meters and flattened the first try of the match. Somewhat hampered by the excess of energy of the Pumas but generally superior in terms of impacts and in terms of pure rugby, Antoine Dupont's teammates immediately scored a second try through Gabin Villière, well served on this one. – there by Léo Barré, this full-back who is still not very serene in the air but without equal or almost, once he decides to bring the ball up with his immense stride. The break would therefore come just before half-time, at the very moment when the Argentines, dominated in almost all areas of the game, suffered an unstoppable penalty attempt, the result of a blunder from third row Juan Martin Gonzalez in his own goal…
So, had we seen these beautiful Pumas? Or was this French XV, directive without being totally irresistible, growing inexorably in power over the course of these three matches? Probably both, sir. And on Saturday evening, as we turned our backs on the Stade de France, we ultimately only wanted one thing: that the three months now separating us from the start of the 6 Nations Tournament would be consumed as quickly as a counter-attack led by Louis Bielle-Biarrey…
France
