Following their impressive defeat of New Zealand, it’s clear a confident France would be best avoided in the quarter-finals
France, buoyed by their ultimately commanding win over the All Blacks, begin their tour/love-in with their country by hosting Uruguay in Lille on Thursday, with games against Namibia in Marseilles and Italy in Lyon to come.
Otherwise, the most meaningful game of the second weekend looks like being Australia v Fiji. The Wallabies appeared to take more from their win over Georgia than most others watching, while Fiji are in last chance saloon after their acutely deflating defeat by Wales. Despite their two bonus points from Sunday night’s thriller, if they lose to Australia, then their hopes are all but extinguished.
Perhaps you had to be at the games, or being at them distorted one’s experience and viewpoint. Despite the slow crawls to the stadia, the overcrowded trams and trains, the disorganisation, the apparent cost-cutting with one eye on next year’s Paris Olympics, once the games kicked off it was a real buzz to be at three of them.
Yes, they missed 32 tackles and the All Blacks cut them open with a few Joe Schmidt-devised strike plays. Yes, Julian Marchand is their latest casualty in a growing injury list, but with Peato Mauvaka and Pierre Bourgarit, they have adequate cover. Finn Russell kept believing he could unlock them, but no matter if it was short passes inside the outside-in defence, which a lot of teams are employing, or long passes which came with red crosses on them, he couldn’t do so.
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