France win battle of the boot

France got revenge over Argentina for their loss in June thanks to a morbid 15-9 victory in Montpellier on Saturday.

In a contest which produced no tries, it was left to the boots of Morgan Parra and Felipe Contepomi to decide the outcome with France's scrum-half coming out tops.

Parra sent four penalties between the uprights, while fly-half Damien Traille added a cheeky drop goal for good measure.

France had been steamrollered in South America last 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.

Les Bleus coach Marc Lièvremont 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, Lièvremont got the result - if not entirely the performance, he craved.

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 lead in the tenth minute 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 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 November series when they go up against Australia next Saturday at the Stade de France.

Man of the match: Hard to look beyond Morgan Parra and his golden boot.

Moment of the match: There's wasn't many, if any. But perhaps Argentina's late surge at the end did it for us.

The scorers:

For France:
Pens: Parra 4
Drop: Traille

For Argentina:
Pens:Contepomi 3

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

Argentina:15 Martin Rodriguez, 14 Gonzalo Camacho, 13 Gonzalo Tiesi, 12 Santiago Fenandez, 11 Lucas Gonzalez Amorosino, 10 Felipe Contepomi (c), 9 Nicolas Vergallo, 8 Miguel De Achaval, 7 Juan Martin Fernandez Lobbe, 6 Genaro Fessia, 5 Patricio Albacete, 4 Mario Galarza, 3 Martin Scelzo, 2 Mario Ledesma, 1 Rodrigo Roncero.
Replacements: 16 Agustin Creevy, 17 Marco Ayerza, 18 Santiago Guzman, 19 Julio Farias Cabello, 20 Alvaro Galindo, 21 Alfredo Lalanne, 22 Marcelo Bosch.

Referee: Jonathan Kaplan (South Africa)