France squares series

Press, 1 July 1985, Page 40

France squares series

NZPA-Reuter Buenos Aires The French rugby team yesterday squared the test series with Argentina, winning a hard fought and sometimes bloody second test 23-15. The French scored two tries in two minutes just before half-time to lead 166. Their winning margin could have been greater but for the poor place kicking form of the five-eighths, Jean Patrick Lescarboura, who was successful with only one of six penalty 'attempts. Rough play marked the game. Intermittent scuffles and punching forced the New Zealand referee, Mr Bob Francis, to call upon the captains, Philippe Dintrans and Hugo Porta, several times to bring the teams to order.

France pressured Argentina’s inside backs and gained sufficient ball from the set scrums and loose play to put its quick passing game into effect. Until the twenty-third minute there was no score then the centre, Didier Codorniou, scored France’s first of four tries from a move begun by the halfback, Pierre Berbizier. Lescarboura converted. Porta levelled the score with two penalties. France’s wing forward, Dominique Erbani, finished off a forward charge with a try at the thirty-ninth minute. Berbizier broke on the blind side to touch down again a minute later. When the full-back, Serge Blanco, scored France’s fourth try in the fifty-fifth minute it looked all over for the Pumas, but the centre, Diego Cuesta Silva, eluded the defence in a dash by the backs to touch down in the sixty-ninth minute. Porta converted.

Lescarboura completed the scoring with a penalty just on full time.