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Sun 10 Feb 2013 | 01:37
Wales win in Paris as France lose for second time in succession

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Wales ended an eight-match losing streak with a hard fought 16-6 win over France in Paris on Saturday. The only try of the game was scored by George North from a perfectly placed Dan Biggar crosskick late in the contest.

Pre-tournament favourites France were expected to bounce back from their surprise defeat to Italy last weekend but coach Philippe Saint-Andre instead faces the reality of having lost their opening two matches in the Championship for the first time since 1982.

In an error-strewn match that could best be described as attritional, Wales won in Paris for just the fourth time since 1975, giving coach Rob Howley his first win in charge.

It was all square at halftime at 3-3, with the biggest talking point being the Stade de France pitch, but a superbly converted North try in the second half gave Wales the lead they needed.

Fullback Leigh Halpenny added to his earlier conversion with a superbly taken long distance penalty late in the game, which despite France's late surge, put Wales out of reach.

"Words cannot describe how much this means - what a fantastic feeling," said Halfpenny.

"The boys played unbelievably well. We dug deep to get this fantastic win - it's been a long time coming," added the nuggety fullback, who picked up the well deserved Man of the Match.

France now face the daunting prospect of away matches against England and Ireland as they hope to avoid the wooden spoon. "We are at the bottom of the Six Nations," Saint-Andre said.

"We were flying in November and at the moment it's very, very tough."

Posted By: Grant Constable

7 Comments

  • 9:29 PM 14/02/2013

    George North one of Wales best players !!!

  • frenchie
    1:29 AM 13/02/2013

    The French improved their game against Wales, i dare say, just, but not enough. And overall France didn't play a good game, certainly not to the level they should be playing at.

    They broke the defense a few times, mauled close t the try line but couldn't score: too many handling errors, and a very poor decision making. Huget fucked up a 2 against 1, he also seemed struggling under the pressure . He showed he's not a full back. Fall also kicked although we had a clear attacking line and an overlap.

    Wales never doubted, never changed their game and it paid off. Well done to Wales! Not a great performance but a very important victory for them.

    Saint Andre made several changes: Fofana will start (finally) at the centre alongside Bastareau i hope, Vincent Clerc is back on the wing, Nyanga is back replacing Ouedraogo.
    First cap for Antonie Claassen , South African born, heard he's a strong runner.

    I'd like to see Trinh Duc and Parra insead of Michalak/Macheneau.
    Big question is what full back? We are missing one big time. And our second row is poor.

  • kadova
    12:16 AM 12/02/2013

    I was freezing ion the stadium and we ended up bitterly disappointed. First time since 1982 that France have lost their first 2 matches of the Tournament.

    Both teams were scared to death to lose the match.

    The main issues for the French team are the players fitness, like every year, it's a kind of lottery, the level of fitness the players will have reached at the start of the Tournament, players not being given enough time to train together and gel. And this year players not playing at their positions. Most of the fans are furious against the coach for that one.

    And it's now obvious the coaches were not able to motivate them enough for the match.

    The only positive thing is they won't have anymore pressure for the next matches because they cannot win the Tournament anymore.

  • felipeg
    10:56 AM 11/02/2013

    Clearly, the ref was a serial whistler. This game was stopped every minute. Every scrum was replayed 4 times... Hard to say if it was always necessary. What I can say is that the whistle was heard more often than usual. Much more.
    Even tough I like the french, I think they could have been penalized a couple of time for high tackles, in the beginning of the game. On the other hand, penalizing the french scrum was almost every time a wrong call from the ref. You could see that the welsh scrum was suffering. After 20minutes I said to my buddy "In the end, the welsh scrum will collapse and the bloody ref will understand where the problem comes from". Didn't happen so clearly, but in the second half the ref began to penalize Wales more often.

  • felipeg
    10:45 AM 11/02/2013

    Agreed. They seemed even weaker than France, except for that try. What France lacked most in this game was a long range kicker. When you get a penalty and go for the line, you just cant accept a 15 meters kick. If that's the best you can do, just run with the ball! If you want to play 1914-18 kind of rugby, you need big guns.
    But France looked really stronger as far as brute force is concerned. Still, this lack of ambition/inspiration is sad... Thank god Scotland was there to score tries this weekend! (what an unusual yet happy thing to say!)

  • 6:18 AM 11/02/2013

    Wales may have won, but play with that kind of energy (or lack thereof) again and they could well get beaten in Rome, not to mention against England or Scotland.

  • marty
    7:06 PM 10/02/2013

    Ouch, what a blow for France. They were looking so good coming in this year's tournament

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