Australia - 29 - France - 17: France coach Bernard Laporte will drill his troops in gaining first-phase possession and throwing accurately in the lineout in a bid to turn around their poor form ahead of next Saturday's second Test against Australia in Sydney.
World and Tri Nations champions Australia scored two first-half tries to beat Six Nations champions France in Melbourne on Saturday in a dour match that was littered with French errors as they constantly chased the ball.
"In the first half Australia had 74 per cent of the possession and when we did get the ball we committed too many turn-overs," Laporte said.
Lock Fabien Pelous, back as captain for a 15th time, said the French were unlucky to have been penalised in the scrum despite dominating the Wallaby front row of Patricio Noriega, Jeremy Paul and Bill Young.
"But it's up to us to change," he added. "It was a funny match, stop-start. We were disappointed by our penalty count and we only found some momentum late in the game."
Matt Burke, whose kicking destroyed France in the 1999 World Cup final when he was playing full back, tortured the French again with seven kicks out of seven for a personal tally of 19 points.
Burke is playing outside centre now, to allow Chris Latham to play at full back. The switch paid off, with Latham finishing a flowing backline move in the left hand corner after a great lay-off by Stirling Mortlock for Australia's first try. Then Burke was a decoy for outhalf Stephen Larkham to slip Rougerie's tackle for the second try.
Those were the only well-worked moves in a match that saw the French, who looked jaded following their 30-hour flight from Buenos Aires earlier in the week, make too many errors to ever be in contention.
France eventually replied with a 73rd minute try from replacement prop Jean-Baptiste Poux - his first Test try - and four penalties, three from outhalf Francois Gelez and one from centre Damien Traille.
Australia led 23-9 at half-time but failed to breach the French defence after the interval - which displeased Wallaby captain George Gregan: "It was a good win for the first Test of the year but there were some scrappy elements from both sides. We faded badly and really let ourselves down in the last 30 minutes."
France's decision to use the game as a trial for next year's World Cup made a mockery of what was billed as a battle between the best sides in the Northern and Southern hemispheres.
Laporte made sweeping changes to his Six Nations Grand Slam championship side following last week's stunning defeat in Argentina which ended their eight-match winning run. In all, only eight players remained from the side that beat Ireland 44-5 in April.
AUSTRALIA: Latham, Sailor, Burke, Herbert, Mortlock, Larkham, Gregan, Young, Paul, Noriega, Sharpe, Harrison, Finegan, Smith, T Kefu.
FRANCE: Elhorga, Rougerie, Marsh, Traille, Jean-Jean, Gelez, Michalak, Martinez, Azam, Marconnet, Pelous, Porcu, Betsen, Magne, Harinordoqui.
Referee: C White (England)
