A win is a win but be thankful Wallabies weren't playing the real France

I may be wrong, but don't the Trbojevics have pretty strong Rugby connections via the Rats ? He may already have a good boot on him that isn't needed in League. Given his other skills, I reckon it's a fair bet he does.

The side were very clunky, we need to play our game and not get sucked into France’s game. We need to be able to switch up the speed of play when needed, the team were often walking when McDermott was trying to make things happen, both teams were walking. We need to be better in broken play and take advantage of these situations. We can hold the ball and build phases for longer. Stretch their defence with width and we will find their huge forwards isolated eventually. The two soft tries were bad compared how hard we had to work for ours. We only scored 7 tries in 6 games last year, we missed some good opportunities last game and I think we were actually better than we were last year in attack. Last year we were dire in attack, we weren’t dire on the weekend, average but not dire. Paisami kicking is a good thing, puts doubts into the minds of the defence which wasn’t required under Cheika. But he also needs to trust the guys outside him when they have the overlap. Hopefully we can be a lot smarter and clinical on Tuesday. Get the ball into their half, build phases, stretch their defence; holes and penalties will come.

It normally is. But the French arrived > 2 weeks beforehand and spent that 2 weeks training for this. They were arguably better prepared than the Aussies.

You've missed the point. You're not comparing apples with apples.

Not really. You’re double counting with the locks. Not sure that Petaia necessarily gets a game at centre ahead of Paisami. In any case, those replaced by Latu, McMahon, O’Connor, White and one of the wingers would be in the 23. 10 of the French weren’t even in the 31 man squad. And as noted by Faith below, most of their best players, including the spine, were unavailable. And it’s sobering because the great majority of the players you list as missing wouldn’t be available for the World Cup or other Tests.

Gees pretty harsh. I don’t know, go watch the test again Tate’s first 10 minutes weren’t great but he did finish with a bang. I’m hoping continuity now not chopping and changing. A guy like Noah LL will get a lot more out that run than he did last year against darkness. Let Joc heal no rush. Yeh yeh we know it wasn’t the French number one squad but we needed a game or series against quality opposition before a tough tri nation and bledisloe. Homework and a lot of it, the game win lose or draw served is serving its purpose, it exposed weaknesses in our skill level and it also exposed our style of play. We tried to do to much in the wrong areas of the field. What I liked was the composure and the ability to change from plan a to plan b on the run. This did not happen under Cheika’s rein. I’d rather play against a French b or c team than play club players playing for Tonga which darkness over the ditch will be rueing. This is a great warm up leading into a tougher series but more importantly it’s another step towards the World Cup.

France have a hell of a lot more depth than us, comparatively, we’re about as young and raw as the French side they brought down because Rennie is trying to build the experience we don’t have right now that they do. We don’t lose a teams worth of capped wallabies, plus others who haven’t been capped, overseas and then our stocks are much better and the conversation is very different.

Thanks Fox for this detailed show on how far from the real France the WBs played ... I'll use this in the live feed at the start of the next game.

And that's why not selecting OS based Wallabies is a dead end.

Sheek, as a 10 year reader and occasional commenter on The Roar, I’ve always respected your informed opinion. . But at the same time, this sort of ‘holier than thou’ and ‘I know better than you’ condescending comment is just frustrating. Given that crowd at The Roar are, from my experience, on average far and away the most knowledgeable and level headed (obvious examples aside) community on any sports website in Australia, it’s honesty kind of insulting. . How about you actually reply to the post without resorting to tired – and inaccurate in this case – stereotypes. . Australian Rugby has enough issues without true fans like you spreading negativity.

I was thinking 12-13? Defs not fullback, not until there's proof he kicks well. He can absolutely tackle.

No it doesn't but think about the context - we've been lead into the doldrums by the board, executives, administrates etc. at state and national level for years and now are having to try and climb back up the massive hole that's been dug. It won't take a few weeks to get out and there will be plenty of dark places along the way but the things is is they are trying to get out. The admin is now doing something, Rennie is trying to do something, the team of exceptionally young players care and are trying to do something. It won't be overnight as I said but if they persevere, they just might make a fist of it. And don't think I am being week on them, I am scathing of them after the game, read my comments on the live blog if you didn't believe me, they have many many things to fix. But they won and that is something. Now they MUST improve their poor aspects and go and show it was no fluke. Baby steps.

Yes, but you’d not play him as a FB initially. Very different position in Union. You’d put him on the wing and tell him to rove around like a second FB, just as he has done in SOO and just as JOC used to do when he was on the wing all those years ago. Once he understands the game, then he could add kicking the the different defensive demands of a union FB. Not saying one code easier or harder, just that the attack coming at you happens differently and you can’t just walk into that.

I guess the argument is that France played the best team they had available and Australia played the best team they had available according to the only ones that really matter and that is the selectors of each team. Sure France could pull in a lot of better players from France, but you could also argue the Wallabies could also pull in a lot of Australian players from France (and the UK). This French team is lucky all those Wallabies were missing as well so it sort of evened out. It was a pretty ugly win but winning ugly because of pressure you placed the opposition under is still a pretty good win, and much better than a pretty loss

This is Hunter Paisami’s decision making in the last 15 mins: 66 tried to run straight into a defender and bump off – no footwork, easy tackle, presented them an opportunity to pilfer, turnover 67 overlap outside him, simple draw and pass but instead gives a long cut out pass which is too high for Kellaway, gives defence easy read, attacking opportunity lost, just needed hands 77 hot on attack overlap outside, space and numbers outside him but goes for kick to Kellaway, too much goes into touch – Rennie fuming. 78:30 he has a 3 on 2 including Koroibete outside him unmarked and hand up for the ball and he kicks instead. If French control better the game is lost. Hooper screams at him to keep the ball in hand! Rennie (a former 12) has a lot of work to do with Hunter on his rugby brains. He needs a clearer understand of his role at 12 v his role at 13. I personally don’t think he should be learning on the job in a test jersey.

Yawn. I really shouldn’t reply to a rugby league fan who’s interest in rugby seams to begin and end with Folau. Where to begin? I guess the glaringly obvious is the arrogance that comes through the writing. This belief that Australia should be a 50 point better team without even an attempt to properly analyse why. France is an exceptionally young team. And guess what, so too is Australia. If you bothered to follow rugby properly you’d understand a lot of the history of the players in both teams. I can almost hear the google search and faux witty response coming from my warm locked down couch in Paddington as I type this. Real rugby fans, like people who’ve actually been tuned into the junior and club scene across the country, understand what this group of players that Rennie has. It’s a group that will not be near good enough at the next World Cup. But just after that something special must just happen if Rennie and the ARU nurture them right. Funnily enough the same could be said about France. Until then, feel free to go back to commenting on the Storm and making silly comments like ‘Folau is the best player in the world’ ad hoc.

“a flat pass later called forward that Paisami stormed onto. It was a ripper.” It was only 2-3 metres forward! Shouldn’t have been called hey

Legit question, how is his kicking ? If he’s playing FB in union he can’t just run it back all the time ..

We're missing 15 local players / potential Wallabies right now - like yourself I don't count the overseas Oz players. So a decent whack given if you think about the fact France have 20+ professional teams across a couple fully professional divisions with budgets of 10 million Euros a pop versus super rugby 5 million AUD. We only have 5 professional teams who play for 15 weeks each season, they play for 30. France have the depth of any other nation, if not a heck of a lot more. They're also a bigger population with billionaire owners investing bucketloads into youth academies.

So you're good then?