France 33, Italy 12: This Six Nations was going to be so straightforward, from a French point of view. The coach Bernard Laporte had exchanged grizzled veterans for callow youths and, voila, a new leaf had been turned with three autumn Test wins. Now for the Grand Slam. If only.
The respectable scoreline hid an afternoon of early ill discipline, poor decision-making and abysmal handling.
"We had no rhythm, no pizzazz," said the coach. "The role of the French national team is to promote our sport. We have failed and it hurts. I would like to apologise."
Worse still, he could face the loss of his influential captain, Olivier Magne. The match commissioners can be expected to look closely at the incident after 35 minutes when Carlo Checchinato dragged the French captain out of a ruck by his neck. The Italian was sin-binned, but television pictures clearly showed the French number seven standing on the head of the Italian wing Denis Dallan.
"Anyone would have reacted the same if they saw that happening to their mate," said Italy's assistant coach John Kirwan.
Magne, who could face a ban of between three weeks and six months, would only say: "There was nothing catastrophic, just a few dodgy things going on between Latins." In fact five yellow cards were handed out, a record for any Six Nations game.
Four Italians were sin-binned, which meant that they spent almost half the match a man down, and they were reduced to 13 for a short spell in the second half when Diego Dominguez and Matthew Phillips were both off the field.
But so inept were the French that they enabled Dominguez to put his side in the lead within two minutes, and their indiscipline meant that by the half-hour Italy led 12-3. Checchinato's sin-binning changed matters: France swept through, with Damien Traille leaving Luca Martin and Christian Stoica transfixed.
However, the French were never sufficiently coherent to break down the Italians. They also infringed in just about every imaginable manner to stay in the game.
Gérald Merçeron landed seven penalties, but it was not until injury-time that Serge Betsen gave the scoreline a respectable look.
Nevertheless Laporte described his team's shortcomings as "du jamais vu" - something he had not seen before. He has a short memory. Think back 10 months to France's error-strewn victory in Rome, and he would realise that Saturday afternoon was very much a case of déjà vu.
FRANCE: Jeanjean (Toulouse); Rougerie (Montferrand), Marsh (Montferrand), Traille (Pau), Bory (Montferrand); Merçeron (Montferrand), Michalak (Toulouse; Albouy, Castres, 80min); Crenca (Agen), Bru (Toulouse; Ibanez, Castres, 59), De Villiers (Stade Français), Auradou (Stade Français; Pelous, Toulouse, 59), Privat (Béziers), Betsen (Biarritz), Magne (Montferrand, capt), Hall (Béziers). Sin-bin: Auradou 23.
ITALY: Vaccari (Calvisano; Mirko Bergamasco, Padova, 72); Pedrazzi (Viadana; Giacheri, Sale, 80), Martin (Northampton), Stoica (Castres), Dallan (Treviso); Dominguez (Stade Français), Troncon (Montferrand); Lo Cicero (Toulouse; De Carli, Calvisano, 57), Moscardi (Treviso, capt), Muraro (Padova; Moreno, Worcester, 57), Checchinato (Treviso), Dellape (Viadana), Bortolami (Padova), Mauro Bergamasco (Treviso; Persico, Viadana, 80), Phillips (Viadana). Sin-bin: Checchinato 35; Bortolami 43; Phillips 55; Dominguez 62.
Referee: A Lewis (Ireland).
