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Romain Ntamack scores France’s third try
Wales’ Hadleigh Parkes can only watch as Romain Ntamack scores France’s third try in Cardiff. Photograph: Stu Forster/Getty Images
Wales’ Hadleigh Parkes can only watch as Romain Ntamack scores France’s third try in Cardiff. Photograph: Stu Forster/Getty Images

France stay on grand slam trail as Romain Ntamack shatters Wales

This article is more than 4 years old
Wales 23-27 France
Ntamack sparkles in Cardiff with kicking and 40-metre try

At last, France are really back. Against the very team who have driven them to distraction of late, this latest incarnation of brazen French youngsters held their nerve as an all-too-familiar narrative unfolded, defending what had been a comfortable lead with only 14 men in the dying minutes. This time, there would be no gifts, as in the World Cup in October, as in the Six Nations last year, when their second-half implosion in Paris sent Wales on their way to a grand slam.

Now it is France who are a step closer to that honour, having not won one since 2010. A win in Edinburgh in the next round would set up a crunch home match against Ireland on the final weekend. The irony was rich that this callow team might finally defend a lead against a Wales team of more than 800 caps and that it should be Wales who gifted them the key turning point. An interception try by Romain Ntamack in the 52nd minute was the response after Wales had pulled back to within a single point early in the second half.

But there was a feeling from the off that something was different about Les Bleus this time. Wales are lately well used to the idea of brilliant Frenchmen outplaying them for long stretches, only to hand them the game on a plate. This time, France were restricted to the odd moment in a first half in which they looked, if not dominant, at the very least comfortable, even authoritative. Wales, with all those caps, hardly looked green, but neither did they impose themselves as might have been expected against so young a team a long way from home. Certainly, it would have tested an uninformed observer to pick the side with such an overwhelming advantage in experience.

The French ran out to an 11-point lead on the half-hour. Again, Wales are unused to this experience, but if a goalline stand by the French near half-time was anything to go by Wales knew they would have to earn the right to overturn this deficit. They chose to scrum a series of penalties (France lost the first-half penalty count 9-2), following the first of two French yellow cards, for Gregory Alldritt in the 40th minute. Wales, caught between a desire to attack the French forwards or their undermanned three-quarters, made a hash of that opportunity to pull back to within a point.

France’s Gregory Alldritt leaves the pitch after he is shown a yellow card by the referee. Photograph: Rebecca Naden/Reuters

France ended up defending the position with an energy that might have felt less familiar. Or perhaps it should have. Wales, after all, know better than anyone the new architect of France’s defensive system, Shaun Edwards. The old warhorse might as well have been manning the barricades himself. Wales looked edgy in the face of it.

Notwithstanding a Dan Biggar penalty in only the fourth minute, Wales’s afternoon had not got off to an auspicious start. The sight of George North leaving the field with another head knock was disconcerting enough, but by then France had the first of their two first-half tries.

France were more than happy to engage in the aerial exchanges with both half-backs deadly accurate with the boot. Ntamack was the one to test Leigh Halfpenny in the seventh minute and when the latter spilled under pressure, the excellent Anthony Bouthier gathered the loose ball to gallop home.

Their second try was just as uncomplicated. This time, Virimi Vakatawa’s urgent defence, harrying Nick Tompkins, set up a chip and chase for Gaël Fickou. When Hadleigh Parkes was forced into touch five metres out, a well-worked loop at the front of the French lineout sent Paul Willemse, the biggest of a monstrous back five, crashing to the line.

Wales’s best bits similarly owed themselves to a cute kicking game. They stayed in the game with three Biggar penalties, until the fly-half’s latest clever kick set them up for that fruitless spell of pressure at the end of the first half.

But they claimed those much-needed points a few minutes into the second. Another smart kick, this from North’s replacement, Johnny McNicholl, set up position for Dillon Lewis’s first try for Wales. It owed much to Parkes’s accidental fumble, but Wales were in no mood to quibble.

Alas, it was no more than the cue for Wales to hand the initiative back to France. As Ireland had in the round before, France seemed to be targeting Tompkins’s channel in attack and defence. The Saracen this time forced a pass, which Ntamack seized upon to run 40 metres for France’s third. Ten minutes later, at the start of the final quarter, Ntamack restored France’s 11-point lead with a penalty from just shy of the halfway line.

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And so to the next twist in the narrative. Willemse’s knock-on as he tackled Ken Owens with Josh Adams free outside the latter could have attracted any of the full range of sanctions. The officials together chose to opt for the meekest that time, just the scrum. But Wales’s scrum was in the ascendancy, and a yellow card soon followed – for Mohamed Haouas.

France, though, split Wales at the next scrum to win a penalty of their own. So Wales came again. A burst by Will Rowlands triggered their most convincing attack yet. McNicholl, Aaron Wainwright and Justin Tipuric played further roles, until Biggar crashed over from close range. Again, TMO perusal was required, this time finding in Wales’s favour.

The home team had five minutes to score one more. Tompkins it was who burst through to France’s 22, but great defence by Camille Chat won France the game’s final penalty at the death. France have, after so long away, announced themselves.

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