Lyon (AFP) – France qualified for the quarterfinals of the Rugby World Cup it organizes with a beating of Italy, which it defeated 60-7, this Friday at the OL Stadium in Lyon.
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The Gallo’s
The champion of this group, which will be decided on Saturday after the exciting Ireland-Scotland at the Stade de France, will face the All Blacks.
In Lyon, the hosts could not fail against the Italians, who in case of victory would have qualified for the crossroads, but the match had no suspense.
“For us it was a knockout match, we had no right to make mistakes, that’s why we wanted to put intensity from the start and maintain it for the 80 minutes,” explained French captain Charles Ollivon after the match, adding that his team is already “very eager.” ” to face the decisive part of the tournament.
In an almost perfect first half in all aspects of the game, the team coached by Fabien Galthié sealed the match by scoring four tries, which also provided the offensive bonus.
The wing Damian Penaud stood out with two supports (minutes 2 and 38) and the young 20-year-old wing Louis Bielle-Biarrey (13), who has become the new nugget of French rugby, and the fullback Thomas Ramos also scored, who contributed in the marker with a total of 20 points.
The score at halftime (31-0) left no room for doubt about the local victory against an Italian team that did not seem to have recovered from the beating received a few days ago against the All Blacks (96-17).
Dupont in Lyon… as a spectator
The French, even, did not miss their star Antoine Dupont, present in the Lyon stands just a few days after the fractured cheekbone suffered in the match against Namibia and without yet knowing the date of the scrum-half’s return.
His replacement, Maxime Lucu, gave a convincing performance during almost an hour that he was on the field and that should reassure French fans in case they cannot count on Dupont.
The French demonstration continued in the second half, with tries from Matthieu Jalibert (47), Peato Mauvaka (54) and Yoram Moefana (63 and 75).
Only when everything was already decided (with the score at 52-0 with 10 minutes remaining), Manuel Ziulani saved the honor of the Italians with the Azzurra’s only try.
The Argentine Gonzalo Quesada, who will take the reins of the Italian team after this World Cup, replacing the New Zealander Kieran Crowley, has a lot of work ahead of him to try to reduce the difference that separates Italy from its rivals in the Six Nations Tournament and that, Far from reducing, it seems to increase more and more.
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