The Blues stammered their rugby for a long time before being freed by an individual feat from Damian Penaud at the very end of the match, Saturday, against Australia. Never has a French team won 11 games in a row.
And Damian Penaud made his support and his phenomenal thrust speak. Perfectly served by his opener Matthieu Jalibert at the end of the match, the winger of the XV of France went to plant the winning try. Saturday, November 5, the Habs went to snatch the victory (30-29) against Australia in the last moments, during the first match of the autumn tour. A success that allows the Blues to win an eleventh consecutive success, which no XV of France had managed to do so far.
It had been a long time, surely since the start of the Galthié era and this match lost in Scotland (two cards including one red against Haouas) in March 2020 that we had not seen such rough Blues. Long jostled in a head-on duel, in which only the third lines Charles Ollivon, who was making his big comeback in the “premium team”, and Grégory Alldritt, managed to find a way forward, the Tricolores chained bad choices and approximations ( inaccurate kicking, dropped balls). Above all, they were constantly under pressure.
The Australians, with insolent pragmatism, punished them for the first time “French style” thanks to a recovery from nearly 80 meters: Tom Wright put down Penaud before returning inside for Foketi, who went to score the first try of the match (6-13, 18th).
Dave Rennie’s players repeated their performance in the 56th minute. The test at the end of the line by Jock Campbell, the winger taking advantage of the good work of his forwards to fix the defense with a maul, allowed them to regain the advantage (22-23).
There was a time, such tension could have derailed the tricolor machine, but something has changed in his Blues. On Saturday evening, the latter exuded the same phlegm, the same confidence, as during the success snatched from Wales during the Tournament at the start of the year. The XV of France did not seem to be able to lose. First clue, despite a sluggish half-time, he turned in front at the break (19-13), thanks to a strong try from Julien Marchand.
Then, to stay in the match, he was able to count in particular on the reliability of his striker Thomas Ramos (6/7), established at the back in the absence of Melvyn Jaminet, but also on his individualities: this time it is Penaud who pulled the wild card from his hat on one of the very last actions of the match.
“Today we had difficulties until the end. In the strategy we were taken aback, but it’s good to know different scenarios”, commented the scrum half of the Blues, Antoine Dupont, at the end of the meeting. Similar story on the side of his coach: “I remember that we broke a record that dated back to the 1930s. Winning eleven matches in modern rugby is something.” Next weekend, these Blues will have a hard time facing the South African world champions.