Australia A defeat French Barbarians in Bordeaux

An enthusiastic, entertaining and predominantly young Australia A side defeated the French Barbarians 42-12 in Bordeaux overnight, running in five tries to two in an impressive display against quality opposition.

Leading 9-0 after 16 minutes, thanks to three penalty goals to fullback Cameron Shepherd, Australia A were set upon by a number of rolling mauls, one of which finishing in the first try of the match to the Barbarians Number-Six Julien Puricelli.

Hitting back with a try to captain David Croft 10 minutes later, Australia then conceded a second to a rolling maul, but it would be the last points scored by the home team with the young Australia A side lifting the tempo just before half time.

A brilliant individual effort and try from hooker Tatafu Polota-Nau in the 38th minute, saw Australia A extend their lead to 23-12, and then with three unanswered tries in the second half, the 25,000 strong crowd was treated to some entertaining and committed rugby by the young Australians.

With 13 players under the age of 24, and three of them yet to even play a Super 12 match, the 30-point victory was a valuable start to the 2005 Spring Tour, and one Coach Eddie Jones was happy with.

“We’re pretty pleased with the effort and I think we showed enough tonight to indicate that this group of players has the potential to go further in the game. How far further the next 12 months will decide for a lot of them, but certainly there is some good raw potential among this group of players,” said Jones.

“Maybe we’ve been able to find some players who have the potential to go further, so we’ll work very hard on this tour to develop them and whether they play Test rugby on this tour or not will depend on how quickly they develop.”

“There are some players there who showed some good skill in certain aspects of their game but in other aspects, that are more important in Test matches, they need to have a considerable improvement to be Test players.”

“I think we saw today a lot of players who will be in the World Cup Squad. How they develop will vary, but I think if we can get five, six, seven or eight of those players coming through to be genuine Test players then we’ll be pretty happy.”

Asked who he thought were the players that stood out the most, Jones says he was impressed with a number of them.

“There were a range of players who played pretty well. Obviously the hooker Tatafu Polota-Nau showed that he’s a skillful player, but still has some work to do on his set piece,” said Jones.

“I thought the whole back row acquitted themselves pretty well. Scott Fava at Number 6 and David Croft at openside flanker were good, and then Leroy Houston who has got some good ball running ability.”

“In the backs, I thought most of them played pretty well. Lloyd Johansson is a young kid who certainly has the potential to be a much better player than he is at the moment.”

Good in attack and committed in defence, the only hiccup for Australia A were the two rolling mauls that resulted in tries to the French Barbarians, a positive according to Jones.

“It’s an area we need to get more and more experience in. Those young guys don’t play against sides like that so that is a good experience for them and I thought at the end of the game they started to adjust better and make better decisions.”

Six Australia A players, Adam Ashley-Cooper, Al Campbell, Brett Sheehan, Nic Henderson, David Croft and Lachlan MacKay will all return to Australia tomorrow, while hooker Stephen Moore will travel with the Wallaby Squad to Marseille with Adam Freier still in doubt with a groin injury.