The French Armed Forces have fought off a well-organised Australian Defence Force team to win the opening match in Pool B at the International Defence Rugby Competition.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The reigning IDRC champions, this result will be seen as a huge win for the French side in what is regarded as their toughest game in what has been nicknamed the ‘Group of Death’.<\/p>\n
France opened proceedings with an opening try from their right wing Melanie Bousquet, who broke through Australia’s defence to dive over the try line, with fly-half Melissa Bergeron adding the extras.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Australia hit back with a brilliant run by Monifa See Kee, who collected an offload from teammate and skipper Caitlyn Costello to score Australia’s first try of the game.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Minutes later, See Kee was on form once again, outpacing the French around the outside to sprint over the line, bumping the Australians up 7-10.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With half-time looming, the French found a quick response to the Australian’s flurry of tries as loose-head prop Lise Arricastre pushed through the Australian defence to dot over the try line, putting the French back ahead at 12-10 at half-time.<\/p>\n
Both teams proved to be closely matched in the second half, and a penalty awarded to France presented them with the opportunity to put more points on the board, with Melissa Bergeron successfully converting for an extra three.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Australia decided to make a switch, and on came their experienced player Sarah Riordan.<\/p>\n
Within minutes of coming on, Riordan came through with a try for the Australian side, and Mykayla Crisp added the extras to raise them back into the lead.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With the French, all hope was not lost, and with a final push at the try line, substitute Julie Del Corral delivered another try for the reigning champions to swing the advantage back in their favour.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As the full-time whistle sounded, the French emerged victorious with a 22-17 victory in what is regarded as the toughest pool in the competition, as the Australians were forced to count a loss in their opening game.\u00a0<\/p>\n
France will go on to play Fiji, and the Australians will play the team from the Vodafone LooseHeadz on 22 August.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The French Armed Forces have fought off a well-organised Australian Defence Force team to win the opening match…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":354467,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[2000,299,36],"class_list":{"0":"post-354466","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-france"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115050499413322408","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354466\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}