Tonga stun France
1 Oct 2011
Tonga picked up a shock 19-14 win over France, but it wasn’t enough for a quarter-final qualifying spot in Pool A.
Just like Samoa’s showing against the Springboks on Friday, Tonga delivered a brave performance in their final World Cup fixture in Wellington. However, they’d be kicking themselves for their disappointing upset defeat to Canada earlier the tournament as it proved costly at the end of their campaign.
Tonga had to achieve a bonus-point win with a deficit of more than seven points against France to advance to the second round. While they recorded a win, they couldn’t score four tries and a late Vincent Clerc try secured France a losing bonus point. Tonga had the opportunities to achieve their goal, but poor finishing and decision making in the French red zone – especially in the second half – saw them fall short.
This will see France go through to the quarter-finals – but you’ll have to question how far Marc Lievremont’s men will go. They’ve failed to impress against the stronger nations in Pool A while there have been talks of team infighting. The defeat to Tonga will intensify criticism.
Tonga performed well in the first stanza to hold a 13-6 lead at half-time. After flyhalf Kurt Morath and scrumhalf Dimitri Yachvili traded penalties, it was wing Sukanaivalu Hufanga’s try in the corner that was the telling score in the opening 40. But Tonga finished the first stanza with 14 men after Hufanaga was yellow carded in the 39th minute for a dangerous tackle.
France could only add one penalty with their one-man advantage in the second half. Once Tonga returned to 15 men, they regained the ascendancy and created numerous scoring opportunities – which mostly came through Morath’s boot.
France also picked up a sin binning when reserve flyhalf Fabrice Estebanez was punished for a tip tackle – which made Tonga’s task of sealing the win easier. Wing Clerc dotted down in the final movement of the match, but it wasn’t enough to stop one of the big upsets of this year’s World Cup.
By Gareth Duncan
190 Comments
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1 Oct 2011, 08:37 am
@goyougoodthing2(goyougoodthing2)-44:
hmmm, the thousands of unemployed Kiwi taxi drivers?
1 Oct 2011, 08:37 am
It seems NZ rugby world cups brings out the worst in the top teams. Sad.
1 Oct 2011, 08:39 am
omg what **** commentary. “if they make it through”, “have they given up on the three tries”
1 Oct 2011, 08:39 am
The ABs bogey team is turning out to be thoroughly useless.
1 Oct 2011, 08:39 am
I wake up, switch on RWC, get coffee, and the first thing I see in this match – France player copping a yellow for a “dangerous” tackle…. Its getting a bit obvious this softly-softly for PI teams.
The English commentators are in raptures – their team could be playing Canada in the QF.
1 Oct 2011, 08:40 am
How that that islander not go for the line?
1 Oct 2011, 08:41 am
Ai Steve you are cute but you are standing on the wrong side of all the action.
1 Oct 2011, 08:41 am
What a butchered try.
@BreakdownBoy(goodstuff)-52:
You can’t blame New Zealand for South Africa’s performance yesterday
1 Oct 2011, 08:41 am
@>^..^< katman(katman)-50: ha ha I agree
1 Oct 2011, 08:41 am
Tonga blew it Should be another 15 points up
1 Oct 2011, 08:41 am
Tonga is losing this game against a French team that obviously want to go home.
1 Oct 2011, 08:42 am
Farksake… France are up the pole…
1 Oct 2011, 08:42 am
Should’ve been a try.
1 Oct 2011, 08:42 am
@Gunther(gunther)-49: But when they’re on form, their rugby is pure poultry.
Puck puck, puckeeeck.
1 Oct 2011, 08:43 am
@Gunther(gunther)-31:
hahaha
@chch(chch)-43:
nice to see you mention that.
i was going to add that though i think the samoans are the dirtiest so far this does of course exclude the blacks because they’ve had no reason to be their usual dirty selves yet.
but come knockouts against us or oz and when their airy fairy game goes south against either of these teams then the blacks go to script and show just what they’ve got in terms of dirty play ability.
i’m sure you’ve seen plenty times in the 3n past…maybe even three times at a time.
1 Oct 2011, 08:43 am
@chch(chch)-51: I was home in NZ 2 weeks ago, besides the commentators I can’t say I heard too much love for the Islanders. Come to NZ, have loads of kids, have issues, go on the doll, cry like babies when things go wrong.
*typical comes to mind
1 Oct 2011, 08:46 am
Ag please man it’s too early for stereotyping.
1 Oct 2011, 08:46 am
@reechie maak so lank die pan warm, bakkies bring die wors…(i_love_u_bakkiesbotha)-65:
I just repeated what Murray Mexted said. I don’t think any Irishman would agree that they were the same.
Not sure what sort of tangent you are trying to take that on. You must have different commentary.
1 Oct 2011, 08:46 am
How were those last 2 scrums not a penalty
1 Oct 2011, 08:46 am
Does this still make the All Blacks’ win against France impressive?
They beat a team that were given a go by Japan and now lose to
Tonga. Are the All Blacks really that good?
1 Oct 2011, 08:48 am
@springbokrugby(springbokrugby)-70: Exactly. Pool A. The Pool of Fluff.
1 Oct 2011, 08:48 am
France have to kick the goal. 1 point is all they need. Anything else is silly
1 Oct 2011, 08:48 am
Damn, gave this game a miss to go shopping as I thought it was a gimee for France. What a mistake! :
1 Oct 2011, 08:49 am
France have lost the plot…
1 Oct 2011, 08:49 am
Le Kak Sportif.
1 Oct 2011, 08:50 am
But score anyway… So they go through.
1 Oct 2011, 08:52 am
Didn’t Italy beat France in the 6 nations too?
1 Oct 2011, 08:52 am
Revolution in the air… Player revolt coming… Looks like Lievremont will be kicked out by player committee.
1 Oct 2011, 08:53 am
@springbokrugby(springbokrugby)-70:
You can only beat who is on front of you and it wasn’t like we struggled like SA vs Wales and SA vs Samoa
1 Oct 2011, 08:53 am
Commentators are in ecstasy
1 Oct 2011, 08:54 am
@David(David)-73:
yeah cant believe i missed this too, great stuff from tonga.
1 Oct 2011, 08:54 am
Tonga – you’ve got to love them ! they wanted the scrum 5 meters from their own try line that’s what you call backing yourself.
if Samoa had played as disciplined as Tonga did they to may have caused an upset
1 Oct 2011, 08:55 am
@springbokrugby(springbokrugby)-70:
no, the all blacks are good.
france is dis-spirited because they’ve got a complete moronic idiot for a coach who is arrogant, insulting and belittling to his players to boot.
1 Oct 2011, 08:55 am
Lievremont is the fashionista of rugby coaches.
Should go for GQ cover shoot.
1 Oct 2011, 08:56 am
the tongan captain is skeel gebliksem LMAO!!! match fixing at its best
1 Oct 2011, 08:56 am
@chch(chch)-79: yes thats true. But for people to say that the All Blacks are hot favourites due to beating a below average French team is a little of the mark.
1 Oct 2011, 08:56 am
Heavensgame.
That could never happen in SA. Our coaches wouldn’t have the balls to revolt against the player committee…
1 Oct 2011, 08:56 am
It seems now that the AB win over France is very overrated.
1 Oct 2011, 08:57 am
@Tacitus(Deucalion)-87: Hehehe
1 Oct 2011, 08:57 am
Fake troll alert
1 Oct 2011, 08:57 am
@springbokrugby(springbokrugby)-86:
Who are these ‘people’ ?
1 Oct 2011, 08:58 am
The Cannibals will celebrate hard 2night! a few RWC tourists will go missing again
1 Oct 2011, 09:01 am
@springbokrugby(springbokrugby)-70: Yes, they’re ranked #1 in the worlf. They’re good. Very good.
1 Oct 2011, 09:01 am
d
1 Oct 2011, 09:01 am
@>^..^< katman(katman)-64:
Its sad really that their wings are useless.
Stuffs things up really.
1 Oct 2011, 09:01 am
Looks like Frans Steyn is flying home – injured shoulder according to rugby365
1 Oct 2011, 09:02 am
What’s happened to World Rugby?
In the traditional rugby order, SA, NZ and France should pretty much be at the top of the pecking order, but these days these pesky newcomer Aussies, the limited English and now even the small fry Islanders all give us a go.
How I long for the amateur era when you could clearly seperate the men from the boys.
1 Oct 2011, 09:03 am
i do find it disgusting that the french allow complete arsses to go to and complete wc’s with teams even though its painfully obvious that there’s major problems going on in the team. problems big enough to cause serius dissension.
its a bit like the 2010 footballl wc all over again for them.
so very french…so very stupid…
1 Oct 2011, 09:03 am
@springbokrugby(springbokrugby)-86:
ABs will always be favorites and rightfully so – but as history has taught us being favorite means squat at the world cup
remember they said springboks were digging their own grave by not playing quality sides at full strength in the 3N and would be under cooked at the world cup. The ABs are in the exact same boat it seems
1 Oct 2011, 09:05 am
arsses for coaches of course.
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