00 vs 27
France bounced back in emphatic style to level the two-Test match series when they beat Argentina by 27-0 in Tucumán on Saturday.
Les Bleus put in a dominating allround display in unfavourable wet conditions to outscore their hosts by three tries to nil with Los Pumas failing to score any points.
Hugo Bonneval, Rémi Lamerat and Loann Goujon got over for the visitors while scrum-half Baptiste Serin converted three tries and along with two penalties took his personal tally to 12 points.
As expected, given the wet weather in Tucumán, it was a tightly contested match in the opening quarter with the visitors enjoying most of the possession and playing the rugby inside Argentina’s half.
The visitors’ defensive effort resticted the home side from getting any quality go-forward ball which saw France miss zero tackles in the first quarter, Les Bleus made sure that the threatening Argentinian attack never gained any form of momentum.
Serin added the first points of the half through a penalty conversion, after 26 minutes, following an earlier failed attempt from him and fly-half François Trinh-Duc.
The first try of the match came right at the end of the first half with the late call-up to the starting XV, Boneval going over after Serin caught the defence off-guard on the blindside and offloaded to the inside running wing, the scrum-half added the extras as the players headed into the tunnel with France enjoying a 10-0 lead.
The half time talk seemed to have inspired Los Pumas to fight their way back into the match, it was however the clinical defence from the visitors that frustrated Daniel Hourcade’s men throughout the second 40.
A well-timed offload from Trinh-Duc put his inside centre Lamerat into a half gap and the midfielder crashed over from close range with Serin adding the extras taking the score to 17-0.
Argentina introduced their replacements in a bid to gain some form of momentum, but once again it was the relentless attacking prowess and clinical defence from the visitors that was rewarded with their third try via loose forward Goujon.
The third score for Les Bleus was also converted by Serin which took the game well out of the reach of the home side and was to be the final score as Argentina failed to score any points for the first time in 16 years since losing 19-0 to England in 2000 at Twickenham.
The scorers:
For Argentina:
Yellow Card: Lavanini
For France:
Tries: Bonneval, Lamerat, Goujon
Cons: Serin 3
Pens: Serin 2
Argentina: 15 Joaquín Tuculet, 14 Santiago Cordero, 13 Matías Moroni, 12 Jerónimo de la Fuente, 11 Manuel Montero, 10 Nicolás Sánchez, 9 Tomás Cubelli, 8 Facundo Isa, 7 Javier Ortega Desio, 6 Pablo Matera, 5 Tomás Lavanini, 4 Guido Petti, 3 Ramiro Herrera, 2 Agustín Creevy (c), 1 Nahuel Tetaz Chaparro
Replacements: 16 Julián Montoya, 17 Santiago García Botta, 18 Enrique Pieretto, 19 Tomás Lezana, 20 Juan Manuel Leguizamón, 21 Martín Landajo, 22 Matías Orlando, 23 Lucas González Amorosino
France: 15 Maxime Médard, 14 Hugo Bonneval, 13 Gaël Fickou, 12 Rémi Lamerat, 11 Djibril Camara, 10 François Trinh-Duc, 9 Baptiste Serin, 8 Louis Picamoles, 7 Kevin Gourdon, 6 Loann Goujon, 5 Yoann Maestri (c), 4 Julien Ledevedec, 3 Uini Atonio, 2 Rémi Bonfils, 1 Jefferson Poirot
Replacements: 16 Clément Maynadier, 17 Lucas Pointud, 18 Rabah Slimani, 19 Paul Jedrasiak, 20 Kélian Galletier, 21 Sébastien Bézy, 22 Jules Plisson, 23 Julien Rey
Referee: Wayne Barnes (England)
Assistant Referees: Johnny Lacey (Ireland), Luke Pearce (England)
TMO: Johan Greeff (South Africa)
