The French seemed.....

 Both Teams played well

France has a solid team. The question is can they get themselves up for the game every time. Their motivation levels were off the scale last night, that's what made the difference in the end. Would have been interesting to see them take on the Boks on this tour.

 France had a very good game plan defensively and Aus showed a stubbornness to not change their game plan that cost them in the end. The French defending like they did was open to some short chip kicks but we didn't adapt. We are still lacking some big strong forwards and never looked like getting over the advantage line. Good game and well deserved french win.

 That Teddy Thomas try was a gem, the sort of thing Habana used to do. And what about a game where Skelton is the second heaviest man on the field....Atoni is a monster, and unlike a lot of big Island forwards, his scrumming technique is decent.
Posters and 365 are laughably over the top about Lambie, but how about Lopez...no mistakes and a searing break through the middle. The Frogs have quite a few game breakers in this United Nations team.
For Bok fans, what price Rory Kockott....he looked solid.

 Mozart
The issue here is the French team and competitiveness int eh 2015 WC - not in repsect of individual players.   
Insofar as the Springboks is concerned - another attack by the egg-in-the face Mozart against Lambie.   
Thomas is no doubt a player with similar deficienies as some others - he fluffed nearly everything in the game until he scored an excellent try.   The comment on Habana is signficant   -  " the sort of thing Habana used to do".   Why is Habana not doing it anymore?
And then on Skelton - what a joke from Mozart.   The man is huge - but not really a good enough lock anyway - he is not even in the starting line-up of the Waratahs regualarly on acount of his deficent general play.  To say that he is strong in scrumming is laughable - Mozart also says Matfield is strong in scrummin.g.  What a scream!!!!
Cockott is not the French first choice scrummie - he came on and did virtually nothing - bar a kick at goal -- so he is solid - while Mozart's constant  digs at Reinach continues.   Egg-in-the-face Mozart will never stop being idiotc about player performances and abilitie. .        
     

Oom your powers of comprehension hover between Grade 1and Grade 2. Kindly point out where I said Skelton is a good player....ever.  

 Mozart
Your comprhension of the game is on idiot level.   You went on about the Skelton scrumming issue - which was on par with your defense of Matfield in scrumming.  Deliberately missed the point once again.  Will you ever learn anything about rugby as a game?   It is a multi-faceted game - not the idiotic one-dimensional approach you always display.

 "The issue here is the French team and competitiveness int eh (sic) 2015 WC - not in repsect (sic) of individual players."


France' performance in the RWC.

1995. We were damn lucky not to be dumped out of the competition by............. France.

1999. Beat New Zealand in the semi-finals and lost in the final.

2003. Knocked out in the semi-finals.

2007. Knocked NZ out of the competition again. Reached the semi-finals again.

2011. Need I say more.

You are underestimating France chances in the RWC.

I'm not dissiing them, in fact I reckon they're one of si x teams who can win the WC. 

 Wasn't you, Denny. It was ou Maaikie.

Fiji did well on the weekend again......talk about pool of death in the WC......Wales, England, Fiji and Oz.......ouch  

 Well pointed out S affex.

You are right Ceradyne --> you underestimate the French at your own peril. The ABs found that out the hard way too many RWCs to count --> Never again.

 Australia are weaker now then they were under Deans or Ewen. France are strong in certain areas, but not the power they were in the 90s or very early 00s. Australia under Cheika have the worst defence I have ever seen from the Wallabies. They look wreckless, rag-tag. Essentially the only thing holding the tea together is Kuridrani and Hooper. They have by far the best 13 in the world and with Toomua they are the best centre pairing in the world by quite some stretch. But the rest are substandard and the coach is even worse. Australia's decline is continuing unabated.

 Cheiker is a cunning man Lestat. Remember, under him the Warratahs won nothing the first year and then a S15 Title the following year.

The results of the changes he makes will become more evident come the Rugby Championship next year.

 I disagree. The Australians are worse now, so where is the magic touch? Jake has a history of sorting all these deficient areas of their game immediately, why not Cheika? The problem is that Australia have lost touch with modern rugby union. They don't know how to make their style relevant to modern rugby and are opting for the Peter De Villiers/Dick Muir template. It will never work.

 We will see.