good to get a win against an almost full-strength french side that has shown how tough they can be. but geez that reminded me too much of watching the tahs.... :tard :banghead a bit ugly
set piece work still needs to tighten up. too many wayward lineout throws, most by taffy but i think squeakers had at least one or two also. scrum was alright, especially after the first 15. seemed to be a lot of trouble getting everyone in position for the frogs. not sure what that was about. from what i could tell though, it seemed that if both teams could keep it up after the hit, the wallabies usually had the advantage. so i guess that's good.
kicking was off. gits/barnes wonky with the radar. several up and unders went too far beyond the chasers too, giving it right back to the frogs with some space. a better opponent would have made trouble out of those. at least georgie boy seemed to finally get those grubbers out of his system :thumb
pretty happy about the work at the breakdown. smith had several nice pilfers. robo and pocock also snagged memorable ones. i don't remember getting counter-rucked or pilfered by the french too much, so i guess the piggies were doing their job. ref was hard on ouedraogo though, i agree. aussie defense was pretty tight overall - tah like. bent a few times, but never broke and could seem to get a turnover when needed. encouraging to see. could have been a different story if beauxis didn't have a shocker.
i thought burgo was ok this game. didn't see the sniping runs and i think that took some of the life out of the attack. but it looked like the french were targeting this. i seem to remember one exchange where he passed from a ruck to AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper)'s feet, he lost forward momentum, ruck formed, and burgo was directing traffic while the frogs took the ball. frustrating moment for me, but otherwise i didn't notice too many glaring errors. he did have a nice tackle on one of the front rowers that dislodged the ball.
lack of go forward ball from the locks and backrowers was still missing i thought. backs had some good runs but something always seemed to spoil it - knock on, isolated, seagull sharp deciding not to pass to the open support runners, etc.... AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper) and turner were great, mitchell even did pretty well. morty seemed to be just bottled up enough to not break the line. a bit cleaner play though and several more tries could have been scored. need to do better against the kiwis and saffers.
so a bit sloppy in some areas with work to do before 3N's. but haven't lost a game yet, while getting some valuable experience for the young blokes. and on a positive note, no injuries picked up (besides hodgy). so should only be getting people back and further strengthening the squad.