FRANCE RESPONDED TO last weekend’s defeat to Argentina by ensuring the two-match series ended tied with an easy 27-0 win on Saturday.
Guy Noves’ men were beaten 30-19 in the opening game six days ago at Estadio Monumental Jose Fierro but bounced back in impressive fashion with a convincing success at the same venue.
Scrum-half Baptiste Serin kicked 12 points while Hugo Bonneval, Remi Lamerat and Loann Goujon all crossed as France adapted significantly better to the wet conditions in Tucuman.
Serin broke the deadlock after 25 minutes with a three-pointer and then raced down the right-wing before seeing his pass tipped into the hands of Bonneval to score the opening try.
France quickly doubled their 10-0 half-time advantage thanks to another Serin penalty and Lamerat’s score, the centre crashing over at the end of a well-worked attacking move to make it 20-0 just 12 minutes into the second 40.
Maxime Medard saw a try chalked off as Yoann Maestri was pinged for an infringement at the ruck, but France were still able to add further gloss to the scoreline.
Jefferson Poirot knocked-on with the line at his mercy but France won a penalty from the subsequent Argentina scrum, taking it quickly for Goujon to touch down, Tomas Lavanini sin-binned for kneeing the flanker in the head in the act of scoring on a disappointing day for the Pumas.
