Parra boots Pumas into touch

Inspired by the boot of Morgan Parra, France took revenge for a 41-13 Buenos Aires mid-year thrashing by edging out Argentina 15-9 in Saturday's one-off year-end Test at the Stade de la Mosson in Montpellier.

France had been steamrollered in South America in June, having travelled with high hopes on the back their first Six Nations Grand Slam since 2004, while the Pumas also beat them twice on French soil at the last World Cup - including the match for third place.

Coach Marc Lievremont had demanded the record be put straight and a performance more solid than last weekend's shoddy 34-12 win over Fiji in Nantes.

In rainy conditions in the deep south of France, Lievremont got the result - if not entirely the performance, he craved as four Parra penalties and a Damien Traille drop-goal secured the win.

Felipe Contepomi sent over a trio of penalties for the visitors who nonetheless in the slithery conditions never looked like turning in the festival of rugby they had delivered the last time they faced their rivals.

Parra gave the hosts a 10th-minute lead only for Contepomi to belt over a 40-metre riposte six minutes later following a knock-on by Aurelien Rougerie.

France, who were largely dominating the scrum in the opening quarter, retook the lead with Parra sweeping over two penalties in six minutes to send the hosts in 9-3 to the good at the interval.

The 35,000 crowd were further cheered with Traille's drop-goal nine minutes after the restart and Parra ultimately gave the Argentinians too much to do when he made it 15-6 on the hour.

Contepomi slammed over his third penalty almost immediately but any hopes that would spark a revival proved unfounded as the French made it 32 wins in 44 outings against the men in sky blue and white.

The French will now hope to make it three wins on a roll in this year-end series when they go up against Australia next Saturday at the Stade de France.

The scorers:

For France:
Pens: Parra 4
DG: Traille

For Argentina:
Pens: Contepomi 3

Teams:

France: 15 Alexis Palisson, 14 Yoann Huget, 13 Aurélien Rougerie, 12 Yannick Jauzion, 11 Marc Andreu, 10 Damien Traille, 9 Morgan Parra, 8 Sébastien Chabal, 7 Julien Bonnaire, 6 Thierry Dusautoir (captain), 5 Lionel Nallet, 4 Julien Pierre, 3 Nicolas Mas, 2 William Servat, 1 Thomas Domingo.
Replacements: 16 Guilhem Guirado, 17 Luc Ducalcon, 18 Jérôme Thion, 19 Imanol Harinordoquy, 20 Dimitri Yachvili, 21 Fabrice Estebanez, 22 Jérôme Porical.

Argentina: 15 Martín Rodríguez, 14 Gonzalo Camacho, 13 Gonzalo Tiesi, 12 Santiago Fernández, 11 Lucas González Amorosino, 10 Felipe Contepomi (captain), 9 Nicolás Vergallo, 8 Juan Martín Fernández Lobbe, 7 Miguel De Achaval, 6 Genaro Fessia, 5 Patricio Albacete, 4 Mariano Galarza, 3 Martín Scelzo, 2 Mario Ledesma, 1 Rodrigo Roncero
Replacements: 16 Agustín Creevy, 17 Marcos Ayerza, 18 Santiago Guzmán, 19 Julio Farías Cabello, 20 Álvaro Galindo, 21 Alfredo Lalanne, 22 Marcelo Bosch

Referee: Jonathan Kaplan (South Africa)
Assistant referees: Nigel Owens (Wales), Andy Macpherson (Scotland)
TMO: Jim Yuille (Scotland)

AFP